Do you know what fascia is and how important it is?

Jesse James Retherford explains it as a continuous web of connective tissue that wraps around muscles, tendons, ligaments, bones, and organs. Fascia, which acts kind of like plastic wrap, binds these structures together creating a three-dimensional matrix connecting everything inside of you from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. Your muscles are wrapped tightly in fascia and it plays a fundamental role in your movement, as well as in your circulatory and neurological systems. Your whole body is totally interconnected by your fascia. Movements ruled by poor postural habits cause adhesion's or tightness to develop in the fascia. Adhesion's lead to loss of or reduction in range of motion, poor tissue health, inflammation, joint friction, and ultimately pain and injury. Due to the interconnected nature of fascia, tightness in one area of your body is likely the direct cause of pain in a completely different area. As the fascia tissue tightens, it pulls throughout the body causing pain somewhere else. This is called referred pain.

As we know when we have pain, we adjust our movements and overcompensate in other ways.  When we do that it throws our natural postural alignment off and then its like a domino, one part affects another and so on.  What can we do about it you ask?  Everything goes back to a healthy, well rounded exercise program that includes, strength, cardiovascular, flexibility, balance, stabilty and mobility training.  When we have a wellness program that includes all aspects we get to know our body and be more proactive when something feels out of whack.  Most people don't know their body other than always being in pain and that is a hard way to live day in and day out.

I go to a massage therapist every other week and she also does reflexology and mixes in essentials oils into her sessions.  She has recently started to manipulate the fascia surrounding my spine.  I had been noticing I was tighter at the upper portion of my spine and she has only done two sessions and I have noticed a tremendous difference.  It hurts a little while she is doing it, because she is actually grabbing the fascia like she is pinching it and then moving it in what feels like a twisting motion.

There are other methods such as self massage, increasing your flexibility and functional training which helps improve your posture.  Give it a try.  If you need any help with improving your posture or functional training don't hesitate to contact me and we can set up an appointment to discuss your needs.

 

11 Benefits of drinking water

You will be amazed of the benefits of drinking water as follow:

1. Lose weight: Drinking water helps you lose weight because it flushes down the by-products of fat breakdown. Drinking water reduces hunger, it’s an effective appetite suppressant so you’ll eat less. Plus, water has zero calories. Here are the further details on how to achieve fat loss by drinking water.
2. Natural Remedy for Headache: Helps to relieve headache and back pains due to dehydration. Although many reasons contribute to headache, dehydration is the common one.
3. Look Younger with Healthier Skin: You’ll look younger when your skin is properly hydrated. Water helps to replenish skin tissues, moisturizes skin and increases skin elasticity.
4. Better Productivity at Work: Your brain is mostly made up of water, thus drinking water helps you think better, be more alert and more concentrated.
5. Better Exercise: Drinking water regulates your body temperature. That means you’ll feel more energetic when doing exercises. Water also helps to fuel your muscle.
6. Helps in Digestion and Constipation: Drinking water raises your metabolism because it helps in digestion. Fiber and water goes hand in hand so that you can have your daily bowel movement.
7. Less Cramps and Sprains: Proper hydration helps keep your joints and muscles lubricated, so you’ll less likely get cramps and sprains.
8. Less Likely to Get Sick and Feel Healthy: Drinking plenty of water helps fight against flu and other ailments like kidney stones and heart attack. Water adds with lemon is used for ailments like respiratory disease, intestinal problems, rheumatism and arthritis etc. In another words one of the benefits of drinking water is that it can improve your immune system.
9. Relieves Fatigue: Water is used by the body to help flush out toxins and waste products from the body. If your body lacks water, your heart, for instance, needs to work harder to pump out the oxygenated blood to all cells, so are the rest of the vital organs, your organs will be exhausted and so will you.
10. Good Mood: Your body feels very good and that’s why you feel happy.
11. Reduce the Risk of Cancer: Related to the digestive system, some studies show that drinking a healthy amount of water may reduce the risks of bladder cancer and colon cancer. Water dilutes the concentration of cancer-causing agents in the urine and shortens the time in which they are in contact with bladder lining.

Can you see the importance of water to your body after understanding the above benefits of drinking water?
Reposted from http://www.mangosteen-natural-remedies.com/benefits-of-drinking-water.html

Stabilize Your Core Program New Offer

Some of you know I created a Stabilize Your Core program that is designed to strengthen your core over 12 weeks without doing any crunches.  Crunches are actually hurting us more than helping and should be avoided.  If you know of anyone that complains about a sore back all the time or someone who may have a little more midsection than necessary, please pass this information to them. 

With the regular program I offer 4 30 minute classes along with the written instructions and a video emailed of me demonstrating the exercises.  I am now offering to those who cannot come to the classes the video with progressions and written instructions for $16.  You can then do the exercises in the privacy of your home. 

Don't keep complaining about your bad back or unhappy about your bulging midsection Take Action Now

Schedule your time wisely.

Check your monthly or annual calendar for any appointments you may have previously made, and evaluate their importance in the context of your goals.  Steven R Covey

I usually talk about priority management over time management.  What tasks are important and proven to be successful in accomplishing my goals?  I was reminded of this when I gathered my expenses for taxes.  I often say that advertising doesn't pay off in my business.  I believe it's about relationship building, getting to know the involved parties and trusting each other.  The one thing I did notice was that I still spent an awful lot of money on advertising, when I truly know that it has never paid off.

Why did I allow myself to expend money for something that doesn't work?  Fear?  Did I believe that maybe it would this time?  I could have taken that same amount of money and hired a business coach or work on the branding of the business.  I could have spent the time and money taking people out for coffee and building better relationships.  I could have done things differently because this didn't align within the context of my goals.  Now I am doing it differently and I would have never realized it had I not payed attention to previously spent money. 

My example is the same concept as Steven Covey's; who advises you to take a look at your calendar and see where your time is spent.  Does the time spent still align with your goals.  I noticed I spent quite a bit of time talking with anyone and everyone.  Now I am more focused and I am starting to see a positive change in where I want to target my efforts. 

Another great quote by Steven R Covey; The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.  Sometimes I don't get to the activities that should have been high priority.  It certainly has nothing to do with lack of time, because I do have the time.  It had to do with my lack of scheduling what was important to get done, because as we know, so many things come up in a day and then the day gets away from you. 

Take a look at your goals and decide whether your activities are still in alignment, if they are not, then make some changes that bring you back to center.

Living a “Balanced” Life.

Has this ever happened to you? You are walking across the room, engrossed in conversation. All of a sudden something trips you. You look to see what the “something” was, only to see there is absolutely nothing there. It happens to the best of us. The point I want to make is that you caught yourself and didn’t actually fall down; you used your sense of balance.

If, like me, you are at midlife, you may think, “I’m too young to worry about falling, and I’m certainly not one of those people who falls down and can’t get up.”I understand that perspective, but in reality, we should always work on balance; if we don’t we are likely to have problems the rest of our lives.

Balance is an extraordinary and complicated task that we generally take for granted. On the other hand, balance is extremely important because we use it in most everything we do. Consider walking. We don’t actually think too much about walking because it comes so naturally. In reality, walking is a very complex process that requires total body coordination and cooperation—and, of course, balance. We also use our balance to get out of bed in the morning, to get into the car, to walk up the stairs, to sit down, to move ourselves across the room, and even to put on our pants.

There are several everyday activities that compromise our balance. When we sit for long periods of time we compromise our posture, which in turn can affect our balance. We walk on pavement and hard flat surfaces and don’t choose our shoes wisely, again affecting our balance. In general, we don’t use our body as it was designed; as a result, we lose our mobility, flexibility, coordination, and balance.

The situation compounds itself. In other words, when we feel off balance or we have some sort of injury we may overcompensate. The overcompensation can make matters worse. If you feel a twinge in your knee, you may start to put more of your weight onto the leg that doesn’t hurt. If you do this long enough, you will start to create other pains and imbalances.

Weak ankles can affect your balance as well. Try this simple ankle test on each foot: Stand barefoot, toes pointed forward, facing a wall. Place one foot about 2 inches from the wall, and without lifting your heel, bend your knee until it touches the wall. If you can do this, move back an inch and try again. If you can touch your knee to the wall when your toes are 2 to 3 inches from the wall, you’ve got a normal range of dorsiflexion.

Back to the issue of walking, one of the most fundamental activities for independence as we grow old. Aging naturally affects a person’s gait, changing it from a longer step length and narrower step width to shorter step length and wider step width. If you move into these changes already unstable, you may eventually not get around as well. Have you ever seen people shuffle instead of picking up their feet? Have you seen people that don’t get across the street before the traffic light changes? It is important to pay attention to your gait and your balance so that you do not become one of these people as you age.

There are several methods used to improve a person’s gait and balance. As a certified personal trainer I can work closely with your doctor or physical therapist to design a program for you to improve balance, increase your strength, and ward off further loss of function. Contact  me and have yourself a safer winter.

7 Tips to lose 7 pounds in 7 days

1. Eat it
2. Eat at home
3. Write it down
4. Drop the carbs
5. Liquid limitations
6. Fishy Advice
7. Move

If you are interested in the complete report and tips by Joshua Carter Contact me and I will email it to you.

Can caffeine help you burn fat?

“Caffeine is most powerful when consumed in an anhydrous state (capsule/tablet, powder ) as compared to coffee.”

I am starting with this quote because it of utmost importance. Caffeine can improve performance, increase cognitive function, and increase fatty acid oxidation in the body. In fact, caffeine can also increase metabolism and fatty acid oxidation in obese, lean and older adult subjects.

Why is this important? Caffeine has gotten a bad reputation for a long time!

Caffeine comes in two forms: one is anhydrous form, and the other is from coffee beans or tea leaves. The latter we are most familiar with.

So most caffeine we think of is full of water. Anhydrous caffeine is not. With 0.5 percent or less, this type of caffeine is found as a bitter, white powder. This powder form of caffeine is appealing to many different manufacturers, which use it in their products. Many supplement and soft drink companies use this type of caffeine in their products to increase the caffeine content. You can find this type of caffeine in soda and many energy drinks on the market today.

The process of extracting caffeine from coffee beans is done in two different ways: soaking them in hot water or subjecting them to carbon dioxide. Soaking is the preferred choice, because it is less expensive!

You can also get caffeine by drinking coffee and tea but it is not as effective at increasing performance and weight loss as anhydrous caffeine is.

How does it help in weight loss? Let me explain.

Caffeine has direct influence on the central nervous system, or the system which controls our fight or flight response. This system increases the productions of epinephrine, which stimulates the process of lipolysis. This happens when it binds to receptor cells called β-andregenic cells.

Caffeine can also help increase energy expenditure, therefore burning fat and carbohydrates. In fact, here is the research to prove it!

Research by Bracco et al shows just how effective ingesting caffeine is for weight loss. Their research shows a dramatic response in both lean individuals, and obese individuals. They showed by ingesting caffeine, there was a prolonged thermogeneic response during the night. They showed caffeine ingestion resulted in more oxidized fatty acids and carbohydrates. They concluded there was a significant increase in lipid oxidation, as much as 29% in lean subjects and 10% in obese subjects. This might have been due to the release of epinephrine, resulting in increased fat oxidation. There’s more!

Research done by Koot et al, demonstrated similar finding as Bracco. They did note one difference: metabolic rate increased almost immediately following consumption of caffeine. They determined metabolic rate stayed elevated for 3 hours after ingestion, therefore increasing metabolic rates by 7%. This means more calories burned, and more fat liberated and burned off!

Now let’s take a look at a study over a 12 hour period!

Researchers Dulloo et al, subjected individuals to 2 hour caffeine ingestion for 12 hours! Their results will astound you! Immediate caffeine ingestion resulted in an increase of metabolic rate by 3-4% over the course of 3 hours. Over the course of 12 hours, they noticed increase energy expenditure of 8-11% in both groups. So what does it mean? Lean subjects burned 150 more calories, while obese subjects increase energy expenditure by 79 calories. Just by adding caffeine to the mix!

Great! Most of these studies focused on lean and obese subjects, but I also mentioned older adults. Arciero et al showed caffeine increased energy expenditure in older adults. Not as significantly as the younger population, but it did increase. They showed a 15.4% increase in energy expenditure in young adults, compared to 7.8% increase in older subjects. In a following study older adults and younger adults have a similar thermogenic response to caffeine ingestion. The only difference: smaller increase in fatty acids availability after consuming caffeine in older adults.

So what about increasing performance? I am glad you asked!

Every athlete struggles to find the competitive edge. Athletes today are stronger, faster and more efficient! Caffeine can be the edge athletes are looking for.

Paluska et al, proved caffeine provides an ergogenic effect on performance. They showed caffeine improves performance and endurance during prolonged exhaustive exercise events. They also showed caffeine has some benefits on short-term, high-intensity exercise. A review paper by Graham, he concurred the statements. He showed caffeine, in moderate amounts acts an ergogenic aid in activities lasting more than 1 minute. He also mentioned caffeine can increase speed and endurance.

Prograde new Metabolism formula has been specially designed to aid in the mobilization and destroying of fat cells. One more ingredient is the use of caffeine in the new product. Caffeine can improve performance, help in fat oxidation, improve concentration and increase thermogenesis. Try the new Prograde Metabolism

Understand your ultimate destination.

Begin today with the image of the end of your life as your frame of reference by which everything else is examined.  Each day will then contribute to the vision you have of your life as a whole.  Steven R Covey

None of this statement is meant to reference religious beliefs.  What I take from this is and I have heard it before, especially in business building workshops are;  When you take a look at the end result, what you want to accomplish ultimately, how much money you want to make and even the lifestyle you want to live. 

When you look ahead and work backwards, you can then determine steps to get you there.  Behavior now, next week and years from now will be what matters most to you, can help guide you and keep you on track.

How you conduct your business, how your colleagues, family and friends see you are all important to you and will be a guideline as to how you value life and pursue your goals. 

So start visualizing;

• How do you want to spend your retirement years? 
• Do you want to live on the beach, in the mountains, by your grandchildren, in another country?
• How much money do you want to ultimately make? 
• Do you want to be a millionaire or comfortable?
• What kind of hobbies would you pursue?
• What kind of house do you want to live in?
• What kind of business do you want to have?  This may change over time as you start to follow your passions.
• Who do you want to spend your years with?
• Are you interested in helping others or just getting rich?

It's much like a business plan except it includes planning a little of your life too.

Understand the essence of synergy.

Simply defined, synergy means that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  It means that the relationship the parts have to each other is a part in and of itself - the most catalytic, empowering, unifying, and exciting part.  Steven R Covey

We have parts of us that our family and friends may not really understand.  Sometimes we may not understand ourself.  I love exploring, testing and challenging myself in ways that may not always be comfortable.  It's a little like the wheel of life, you have the financial, emotional, family, self and work etc parts of you. 

Each part doesn't 100% explain who you are and how you feel.  Its the parts put together that creates a unique you.  I am always surprising myself and others because I put myself out there to experience what others may not see in me or know about me, or even myself knowing about me.  We are here on earth to experience and grow.  So why not?

What are you afraid of?  What others will think?  What you may even think about yourself may change.  Trying and doing something different can be fun and exciting.  You may even find that what you always wanted to try really wasn't all it was cracked up to be in your mind.  Or you may find the passion really is there and you want to pursue more.

Have you ever found parts of your life may not seem like they fit?  Take a big ol burley harley guy for example; you may find yourself intrigued by why he rides or the stories to be told, but you don't really picture the fact that in his "real" life he is a doctor or a lawyer.  Do you feel there is something you would love to give a try but it really doesn't match your personality or what others may think about you or even what you think about yourself? 

That's what synergy is about, all your parts and relationship of one to the other, if your holding back on being the person you really are, your relationship with yourslef will always be a little off.

Open a new script inside your brain.

When you have access to both the intuitive, creative, and visual right brain; and the analytical, logical, verbal left brain, then your whole brain is working.  In other words, there is psychic energy taking place in your own head.  Steven R Covey

With all this brain stuff going on, its hard to think.  I used my analytical, logical left brain most of my life.  I use to say I wasn't creative at all and honestly at the time didn't even know about right and left brain.  I still think logically and use common sense but I have also found my creative right brain side recently and loving it.

I have always been very interested in art, wood working, wood carving etc but more in how do they come up with those ideas.  I actually still wonder but I am finding that I am also coming up with ideas myself, something I didn't think was possible.  Have you ever been passionate about trying a new hobby and kinda never really got started because you didn't think you could do it? 

Give it a try, don't regret that you didn't.  If you suck at it then don't do anymore or better yet, keep doing it and your bound to better at it.  If you are one of the few that don't meaning you still suck at it, then find something else to try. 

I recently came back from Salida and came across an artist who does writings of the Kabbalah and while I truly know nothing about it, I was drawn to the 72 Names of God and the one that really stood out for me was;
 Passion.  The fire of passion in my heart and soul gives me the power of sincerity, devotion and correct consciousness.
Powerful and thought provoking.  This artist actually paints the 72 sayings into her paintings, most of which are about nature. 
What are you passionate about?