Wake Up with a Walking Meditation

Hooray, another “mental health” post! While we are obviously “physical” fitness trainers, we know that without the mental part, you haven’t got much. Today, we bring you a walking meditation. What is a walking meditation, you say? Well, it’s rather simple–you meditate while walking. These doesn’t mean your humming “om” to yourself while walking blind down the street. It’s more about leaving your own concerns about yourself behind and simply become an observer and a sponge. You take everything in while simple taking step after step. You listen to your breath, you listen to the birds, you feel the wind, you see the sun rising, and so forth. This exercise can be incredibly rewarding while also saving time. If you have a dog, I hope someone in your household walks it every morning. This can be done with your dog! Let’s get started. And if you think you can master the walking meditation, consider running, but first check out Nicer Shoes for their comparison between the two activities.

Sunrise today

Jan312016

An Absolutely Free Way to De-Stress and Unwind

Sometimes after work, your brain is cramping and the world seems especially bleak. You just want to collapse on your bed and sink into it forever. You find it difficult to relax and unwind. I’ve been there! Many of us have! It’s very important to have a reservoir of tools that can help you de-stress and chill out. Things like yoga, meditation, a hot bath, workouts, and so forth. But what if you want to do next to nothing to get there? I have a solution that I discovered by accident!

Have you ever heard of your Third Eye? I’m no mystic or anything of the sort, but I do believe in certain places of our bodies being able to manipulate our mind and other areas of the body. Such as Reflexology, where putting pressure on certain parts of your feet can help de-stress or alleviate pain in other body parts. It’s a little above the brow, in the middle of your forehead. During a yoga session, I was doing a child’s pose with my forehead to the mat. The instructor told us to move about gently, doing what felt right. So I did. And I discovered a wonderful sensation that instantly calmed me down and lowered my stress. Follow these steps to find a little slice of bliss:

Jan302016

Healthy Apple Muffins

Yay, a recipe post! We haven’t had enough of these lately, but we are coming back at ya! I recently started a project where I want to start doing at least one cookbook recipe a week and tailor it to fit my needs. Lucky enough and exciting enough, I started with A Feast of Ice and Fire (for the non-book lovers, this is a Game of Thrones cookbook!!). Hungry got this cookbook for me for Christmas and I seriously love it. The recipes are so amazing with a slice of text from the book that the recipe’d food came from! Most recipes also provide the medieval version (how they would’ve made it in the Song of Ice and Fire series) and also a modern version.

I chose to start with Applecakes. As you can see in the pictures below, Applecakes were something that the men on the Wall ate (like Jon Snow). The way they tie it back to the books absolutely makes it for me! Applecakes were basically like a medieval donut back in the day. I chose to do the Modern Applecakes recipe which resembles more closely to a muffin. I also healthified it! Less butter and less sugar. But let me tell you, these are absolutely delicious. The moistness that comes from the chunks of apple is wonderful. And you can just picture the characters eating them too, which makes it all the merrier.

Viserion paid a visit

Jan182016

Workout While You Drive!

Getting from Point A to Point B used to be a challenge of physical endurance and mental strength. If you’ve played the game The Oregon Trail, you can only imagine how fit you’d have to be in order to make it across the country. Nowadays, everyone tries to put in as little effort as possible, as we’re even moving closer to cars that drive themselves. While I’m not asking you to ford any rivers, it wouldn’t hurt to think about turning your daily commute into something a little bit more rigorous. Here are a few things to try differently:

Jan122016

Execute, Don’t Just Dream!

This was an article that I started drafting back on August 25, 2015, at 11:30 am after reading the article that I mention below. Unfortunately, I never completed it. Fortunately, as I was looking at the draft I realized that this might be the best time to publish it. Since this is the beginning of the year and we’re all so busy focusing on what we did and didn’t do in 2015 and what we will do in 2016, I want to encourage you to pursue your dream… or any other ridiculous ideas that might actually work.

Dec232015

Creed Sequel in 2016

*Spoilers about Creed coming up*

Creed was extremely predictable, as it followed the patterns set forth in the original Rocky movie. By doing so, it was a successful film and almost unarguably the best since the first two. (I know some of you, myself included, have a certain love for the fourth.) Before the final match even began, we all knew that Pretty Ricky was going to secure a victory by decision, but Adonis would earn his respect and give him the fight of his life in the process. Rocky himself foreshadowed it by saying that Apollo was the better boxer during his lone victory over the GOAT, but his heart pulled him through.

Image source

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.

Nov122015

A Guide to a Proper English Breakfast

It seems to me that there is nothing better in the morning than a nice English breakfast (can substitute for Irish or Kiwi, too). It’s nutritious, satisfying, and joy-giving. A lot of people go to pubs and English/Irish cafes in order to get a good English breakfast. Little do they know, you can actually make your own English breakfast at home for half the price! We’re here to show you how. How is an English breakfast different than an American one? The main reason is that English breakfasts have much less of a sweet component than American breakfasts. Often with American breakfasts, you’ll see pancakes or french toast or something similar. The English breakfast is full of savory notes that all mix together. My version is probably definitely not textbook as it is heavily influenced by New Zealand–nonetheless, it is delicious.

The meat version

Aug212015

Get Phitt! Drive the Movement

A few months ago, Hungry joined a new project because he has serious problems focusing on one thing at a time. Opportunities to try something else come often but it’s a rarity to find a real diamond in the rough. They’re usually rocks in the rough. There are hundreds of thousands companies and causes that you haven’t heard of and you probably never will. Not everyone can be Chipotle, Starbucks, and Apple but in order to get anywhere near there you need to have a vision and drive. “Too low they build, who build beneath the stars.” (Edward Young) You need to be willing to put that dream high on your priority list; higher than working out, eating, and even sleeping.

Image source

Aug202015

Good Morning Meditation

It’s easy to go about our morning either dazed and confused or rushed and panicked. Then how does that make the next few hours play out? The day, even? With just five to ten minutes (even less sometimes!), you can set the right intention for the day and get into the mindset you want to be in. I find this much more preferable than the craze that our minds and therefore focus can get whipped into. So here’s a simple good morning meditation to try to do each morning and start the day right. This can be done any time of the day, but I find that the morning is great for setting the day up.

Find a comfortable seated position or laying position (if you won’t fall asleep). If you’re seated, sit up straight and tall. If you’re laying, be still and unbothered.