Can’t Face Your Healthy New Year’s Resolutions? Meditate!

This post was written by Holly Ashby, who works for Will Williams Meditation, a meditation centre who provide classes on meditation in London.

So, it’s that time of year again where the shops stop encouraging you to eat and drink like there is no tomorrow, and are suddenly rolling out all their “January detox” ranges. We are often encouraged on cycles of feast and famine, rather than simply taking joy in both food and exercise and living life happily.

There’s no reason not to get a little healthier as the New Year kicks in. Just remember to do it at your own pace, for your own personal goals rather than other people’s expectations, and in a way that makes you as happy as you are healthy. There’s also no need to set impossible goals – just to exercise a little more, and eat a little healthier after enjoying the holiday excesses.

Dec202015

A Normal Person’s Normal Day of Eating

We’re all human, far from perfect and susceptible to bad decisions. Yesterday, I had one of those truly mortal moments when at the end of a relatively clean day of eating, I lost it… all. As a result, I thought I would share in a somewhat educational and somewhat comedic way, what my day of caloric consumption looked like.

Dec192015

7 Ways 30 Days of Yoga Has Helped Me

I told you awhile ago I started a 30-Day Yoga program. Well, I have! And I wanted to share the benefits that I found throughout this program. If you’re wondering, I used “Yoga with Adriene“–a down-to-earth goofy Texan lady who spreads good vibes. It’s a program of variety–one day you’ll work on breathing, the next on sun salutations, the next on Warrior poses. She keeps it fresh, interesting, and offers variations on each pose. If you know me, you know that flexibility is one of my weakest areas. So even though I’ve been doing yoga off and on for years, I’m still not close to an advanced level. My problem is keeping up with it! So how have 30 days of yoga helped me? Let me count the ways…

Dec102015

If I Were Organized…

A lot of things can get in the way of working out: laziness, lack of time, lack of motivation, or injuries, to name a few. However, another reason, a big one that a lot of people don’t realize is organization. Or rather, lack thereof. This one is lurking reason that weaves other reasons together to seem as the real thing. If your life isn’t organized, things like other activities, time, and such are going to get in the way. So, I want to do a quick exercise with you to get ORGANIZED.

Nov242015

Meditation on Love

To continue our theme of thanks and giving, let’s do a short meditation on love. This will only take a few minutes and give you a great deal of happiness down the way. They say being grateful keeps us happy, but also healthy and I think it’s worth it no matter what. Being grateful makes you humble and thankful for what you have. That weeds out a lot of negative emotions. Negative emotions are like vines slowly wrapping around your body and neck, tightening until you can barely breathe. Love can combat that! Let’s get started.

Nov202015

Grateful Fridays

To continue on the aspect of being thankful, I wanted to talk about being grateful! My friend, Mary Kate, and I like to play a little “game.” It doesn’t really have a name so I’ll call it “3 Things.” Basically, randomly whenever you feel like it, you email a friend, a partner, a family member, three things you’re grateful for. It can be anything from something deep to something that’s simply an everyday thing. Mary Kate and I sometimes just do random days out of a month, or we might do it for days, weeks, or months at a time! It really helps to stop and think about what you’re grateful for. Here are mine today:

Nov102015

Best Dog Food in 2015

A few days ago we directed you to www.reviews.com for a comprehensive study of the best protein powders available in 2015, and you loved it. We received glowing reviews about that post and have had handfuls of people tell us that they ordered new protein that day based on what they read. While we had worked together with our friends at Reviews.com to bring that information your way, this time, we’ve decided to share our absolute favorite study that they’ve put together. If you have a dog or even a cat, or maybe you just know someone with a dog, you should keep reading.

If you’re the owner of a dog or cat, you’re directly responsible for their wellbeing. Their quality of life is so heavily dictated by your actions, so it’s your responsibility to take care of it better than you take care of yourself. If you’re buying the cheapest dog food at the store, you need to ask yourself if you’re doing the right thing by taking care of that animal. In all fairness, we are individuals that think the love that a good owner gives definitely makes that animal’s life much more enjoyable than being stuck in the pound, out on the street, or dead. Still, having animals live in your home doesn’t have to be a ridiculous expense. Here is the best dog food in 2015!

Our love bug food monster

Nov072015

NETA Group Exercise Workshop in Los Angeles

If you read our recent post about NASM’s effort to enter the Group Exercise market through their strategic acquisition of AFAA, you might remember we discussed the current hierarchy of certifications in the industry. While we didn’t give you the whole picture, you saw a glimpse and got an idea of who the heavy hitters were in group exercise. One organization we didn’t mention happens to currently be one of the only two that has NCCA Accreditation for both their personal trainer and group exercise instructor courses. In fact, I’ve looked through a lot of fitness professional catalogs and they might have the most diverse of all. They are NETA. (I spend at least ten minutes a day explaining acronyms in the fitness and aquatics industries to people.)

Source: NCCA

Nov062015

30-Day Yoga Program

Last week, I told you guys that I need to learn how to stretch again. I’m here to report I’m doing a fairly good job! What’s one of the best ways to stretch? Yoga! I wanted to restart my stiff, non-flexible body so that I could feel limber again and be able to touch my toes. I found that I had really isolated a big part of my physical health: my flexibility. These 30 (hopefully) consecutive days of yoga will open up my hips, my hamstrings, and overall help my flexibility. I learned the hard way that you can’t ignore one part of your fitness; each part of our physical health is important. If you ignore one part, something bad is going to creep up on you. I am happy and look forward to my yoga each day. But how did I pick one?

Nov032015

Are You Working Out Hard Enough?

There are a few ways to measure whether you’re working hard or not. Well, there are a lot more than a few ways, but there are only so many that are relatively accurate. When it comes to exercise, the best way to measure progress is over time. We can watch our strength and conditioning grow as we can do more pull-ups or as we can see more abs in the mirror. As our mile time decreases and our lean muscle mass increases, we receive positive feedback from our body and it feels good. But what about during that painful workout? What can keep you going during the hard times?

Let’s go back to the first statement made in this post and reconsider the two most popular options. The first one is called perceived exertion, which basically makes you subjectively rate how hard you’re working on a scale of 1-10, or 1-20. It usually takes me a few minutes to explain it enough to your average fitness enthusiast before they get the general idea. It could take them weeks, months, or years at that point to fully understand it and apply it. It’s not reliable enough for most people. It’s too qualitative and not quantitative enough because of its subjectivity. So what is the second option?