A weight loss vision board can be a useful tool to help you attain the goal of having balanced weight. It keeps you visually focused. By having the picture of well-being in your mind constantly, you are less likely to make unhealthy choices. Vision boards are especially great if you have a specific goal that you would like to work towards. So if you are hoping for success, you would use photos that relate to success. If you are hoping for good health, you would use photos that relate to wellness.

A vision board is typically a collection of photos that relate to the dream you hope to manifest. It is a tool that you can use for applying the law of attraction. When you look at the pictures of slim and healthy-looking photos, you feel inspired to have the same for yourself. You feel positive rightaway. By impressing your subconscious with the same images, you change your internal programming of thinking and feeling fat and lazy. You are motivated to take actions that lead you to wellness.

Your body is highly intelligent. It has a natural tendency to know what it needs for balance. When you are congruent, the choices that you make feel right. You experience wellness overall. You are able to perform at your optimum level. Instead of feeling sluggish, you experience lots of energy.

The following are tips that can help you create a better vision board for weight loss

1. Find a role model. Exercise is some thing the many who lead sedentary lifestyles find hard to accomplish. It would help if you have a role model to emulate. Hence, place a picture of this person on your weight loss vision board. You could also place photos of people you would like to resemble.

2. Choose photos that will elicit an emotional response. You need to create an emotional response each and every time you look at them. If they do not, then your photos simply will not accomplish the goal you have set for them. Hence, choose pictures that reflect vitality, such as people jumping, doing some amazing sports and having happy faces.

3. Use your Before pictures. Most certainly, should you have a photo of yourself before you gain all that extra pounds, put it on your board too. It helps you to connect with the time when you are feeling good about your body. You also know that it is possible to lose what you have put on recently.

4. Choose pictures of healthy food. Consider placing pictures of tasty looking healthy foods such as salads, fruits and whole grains. Select images that look yummy!

5. Choose pictures of exercises that promote holistic well-being. While it is optional, it will be great to consider holistic practices. These are pretty easy to find. Search for royalty-free photos on the internet. Exercise that promote holistic well-being include tai-chi or yoga.

You can help yourself by making your weight loss goals more appealing by making a weight loss vision board. Your vision board is one filled with colorful pictures of what you desire. You are in less resistance and more connected with feel-good thoughts. You feel connected with the possibility that you can be of healthy weight. Don’t hesitate any longer. Affirm your intent for wellness by making a weight loss vision board!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Evelyn_Lim

One of the top fitness educators in New York City (and one of my personal mentors) will be stopping by to talk about how to get your body fit from the inside out.

We are going to be talking about the LATEST, including the topics of:
…Functional Training
Lifestyle Changes

Make sure you tune in! I PROMISE every minute will be valuable.

Bring a pen and paper. You’ll be taking a lot of notes!

——————-

Chris McGrath, MS, CSCS, CPT

Chris is the founder of Movement First, a New York City-based fitness education, consulting, and training business. Drawing on over 20 years of fitness experience, Chris specializes in a variety of training and coaching modalities, including, sports performance and injury prevention, post-rehabilitation and lifestyle/wellness coaching.

While serving as Director of Education for one of the largest health club chains in the US, Chris designed and delivered education for fitness professionals at all skill levels. His passion for teaching and a desire to reach a broader audience with his experience and philosophy drove Chris to establish Movement First.

Today, Chris teaches and consults for some of the most successful fitness organizations in the world, including the American Council on Exercise, Functional Movement Systems (creators of the Functional Movement Screen), Fitness Anywhere (makers of the TRX), Star Trac, and numerous others. He also creates and teaches his own workshops for Movement First. In addition to being a first-class educator and trainer, Chris is a recognized international presenter.

Chris has an MS in Exercise Physiology with a focus on Sports Performance and Injury Prevention, and a BS in Health Education along with numerous industry-recognized certifications.

These foods are great and convenient, pack a one two punch of high protein and low fat.

1. Tuna: A great convenience for busy people. I’m talking about canned Tuna. If you have time grill Tuna steaks, that’s even better. But then again, this post wouldn’t apply to you because you do have to cook.

2. Spinach: I don’t know about you, but I’ve grown tired of lettuce a lonnng time ago. So I look to spinach to satisfy my sweet tooth when I’m eating for fat loss. Raw or cooked, Spinach contains a lot nutrients, is high in fiber, low in fat, and tasty. I like to get the bagged kind. When you are on the go, bagged spinach can’t be beat.

3. Broccoli: Broccoli is another option. If I’m not eating spinach, I’m eating broccoli. Not the biggest fan of the raw broccoli. I try microwave my broccoli or a couple of minutes before I eat it. You can pack in raw, and wen you are ready to eat, just pop it in the microwave for a couple of minutes.

4. Almonds:Almonds are a great snack to have when the carb cravings kick in. They tend to have a lot of calories, so eat no more than 10 at any given time.

5. Apples: Few fruits are as convenient as apples. You can find them in any store that sells produce. They don’t need to be refrigerated. You can take them anywhere.

6. Celery: Celery sticks are an awesome option for snacks. It goes great with almond butter, it’s high in fiber, low in calories and offers a bit of Nutrition.

7. Eggs: Although they still get a bad rap occasionally for cholesterol, I’m a big fan of eggs. Yolks and all. If your diet is otherwise healthy, with a limit to grains and excess carbs, whole eggs are a great option.

8. Chicken:  I prefer mine to be skinless white meat and I like it grilled or stir fried. Baking is fine too. I live with a vegetarian, so we have some pretty interesting debates on this topic…..

9. Blue Berries: There are a number of fruits that you eat sparingly because of the high amount of sugar, but blueberries ain’t one of them. In fact, any fruit of the berry family delivers more bang for the buck than most other types of fruit.

10. Olive Oil: Whether I use it for stir fry or as the base ingredient for salad dressing, I’m always draining my bottle of olive oil. I prefer the extra virgin olive oil for both taste and nutrient content. . . .

You explore your local commercial gyms and you see this: roughly 50% of the
space is taken up by cardio machines, 35% by fixed axis weight machines, maybe
10% by traditional “free weights” (barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells), and 5% by
some free space set aside for stretching. Any reasonable person coming into that
gym would conclude that cardio and weight machines are the best way to get fit.
Right? Well, they’re not!

Most gyms are set up like supermarkets. In a supermarket the stuff that’s good for
you (fresh produce, meats, dairy) lie on the perimeter but the majority of the space
in the center is taken up by processed, canned, boxed, dry, dead foods.

Cardio machines looks innocent enough, as they won’t actually make you any less
fit, but maintaining cardiovascular fitness only takes breathing uncomfortably
hard for 20 minutes, 3 times a week. So if you can read a magazine or talk to your friend while strutting away on your elliptical, you aren’t even fooling yourself!

Weight machines appear to be a huge technological advantage over free weights.
But quite the opposite is true: Weight machines train individual muscles in
isolation, while the rest of you sits completely inert. (Hey, isn’t this what you’re
doing all day? Sitting??)

Weight training in machines only works what is called the prime mover muscles.
Prime movers are the larger muscles that act directly to bring about a desired
movement. This works great for the body builder (as that is what it was intended
for), but any and every strength and conditioning coach in America will tell you
that muscle-isolation machines don’t create real-world or “functional” strength for life or sport.

Camping out in an office chair for 8 - 10 hours a day allow the all important
stabilizer muscles to atrophy. These are the smaller muscles that surround your
joints and help protect them from injury. They also allow the prime movers to do
what they were designed to do better. The three key groups of stabilizer muscles
that get neglected in machine training are:
1. the deep abdominal muscles
2. the hip stabilizing muscles
3. the shoulder girdle stabilizing muscles

Functional Training
It’s important to get rid of the “muscle head” mentality… The type of program that
focuses on training individual body parts with the goal of producing larger-stronger
muscles. We lift weights to move better.

What we should be doing in the gym is “Functional Training.” Functional training
Functional training is most often; multi-joint, standing, and train movement
patterns, not muscles.

The majority of you out there using a gym are office workers, not construction workers and consequently your muscles have atrophied from disuse. The nature of your work is written on your physiques. An imprint of your sedentary lifestyle can be read in your poor posture, gait, and lack of ability to move your body through primary movement patterns such as; squatting, bending, lunging, pulling, pushing and twisting. The goal of training is not just to look good (at least it shouldn’t be), but to condition yourself to perform functional movements of daily living that include: walking up stairs, bending and pulling to lift a toddler, carrying packages, squatting down to pick up heavy loads and having enough agility and balance to get around obstacles without fear of pain or injury.

Brett’s Bottom Line: What’s being “sold” to you as fitness in most commercial
gyms is a lie. We have disassociated ourselves from real health & fitness and
focused on a one-dimensional, incomplete concept of machine training with a few
crunches here and there in hopes of helping us look better.

ABOUT BRETT
Brett Cohen is the founder of Integrated Training Systems, a holistic
fitness company whose goal is to provide elite and everyday athletes with
the tools to reach full functionality and athletic potential through an
integrated approach to fitness, wellness and conditioning.

He is Certified by;The Titlelist Performance Institute as Golf Fitness
Instructor and the C.H.E.K Institute as a Golf Performance Specialist as well
as Exercise Coach and Holistic Lifestyle Coach. He also is certified as a
Functional Movement Screen Specialist.

Brett specializes in, Strength and Conditioning for Golfers and Runners,
Corrective Exercise, Myo-fascial Release, Nutrition and Holistic Lifestyle
Coaching.

He works with elite and everyday athletes from ages 18 to 80.
He is on staff at Drive 495, New York City’s Premier Golf Fitness Facility and
is available for seminars and lectures.

E-mail: imakeufit@hotmail.com
www.integratedtrainingsystems.com

You need to go to your local gym right now, literally. Today is the last day of the fiscal year in the gym world. All the quotas that they have set for themselves are usually very high. Chances are they are playing catchup, and are trying to get those numbers up.

Add a weak economy, and you’ll have managers who are willing to do almost anything to keep you from walking out that door.

So get out there.

But you before you sign that dotted line, make sure that you go in prepared. Here is a list of some of the most important factors your need to consider when joining the health club.

1. Location- I don’t care if it’s the hot, sleek celebrity gym that has the latest exercise craze that you saw on Oprah. If you have to seriously travel to get to it, you are less likely to be consistent. Make sure that the gym is within a close distance to your home. Think to yourself, ‘can I get to the gym even in the middle of a snow storm’? Trust me, location can make or break your success.

2. Personality – Look at your personality type to find the best gym for you. Are you an extravert? Group exercise classes are for you. You get to be with other people and can be a part of different communities within those walls. Make sure that whatever health club you choose has a strong group exercise program with good instructors.

If you are more of the shy, quite type, make sure that your club has a varied selection of cardio equipment. Make sure it’s clean and up to date. That way you can put your headphones on, and focus on what’s going on in your inner world. You don’t need a gym that’s crazy and packed all the time. You may have to be more flexible with your schedule than the extravert, who loves the party-like atmosphere that the after work crowd can bring.

Both types of personalities need a club that has a good variety of free weights and machines weight. In addition, look for strength bands, stability balls and balance boards. They are good signs of a gym that really cares about the quality of your experience.

3. Amenities – Know beforehand what you are looking for in the extras. I used to work in management at the Sports Club LA, a chain of high end clubs. Celebrities like Betheny Frankel called that place their home. If you were ‘in the know’ in NYC, you were a member of that gym. That gym has everything: the best day care in the city, classes galore, a sun deck, an open bar, a restaurant, massage therapy, wi-fi in the locker rooms. Complimentary food and coffee. Even a meditation room!

But the actual workout area? It’s so-so. It has everything, but the weight selection is limited. The line of machine weights that they have is OK, but not what you would expect from such a high level gym (if that’s important to you).

If you wanted to socialize and make business deals, it’s the best gym in the world. If you are serious about working out though, I would say go somewhere else.

The opposite is also true. I’ve been in gyms where they have every piece of equipment imaginable, but the walls and floor were concrete, there was no shower and they didn’t provide towels. For the gym rat, it was a paradise. But you may be someone who actually likes to take a shower before they go home (or to work).

Know, in advance, what you are looking for.

4. Cleanliness – If cleanliness is a major sticking point for you, then you need to make sure that you check out the locker room. Here’s the thing, especially if you’re a guy: there are going to towels on the floor when you walk in. That should not be your criteria. I’ve managed many gyms. All you need to do is lapse for 15 minutes and the locker room looks like a bomb hit it.

What to look for? Go to the shower stalls. Look at the corners. Go to the bathroom stalls. Look on the floor. When on the gym floor look at the machine weights. Are they collecting dust. Look at the treadmills. Is there a pile of dust on the floor?

5. Friendliness of staff – This can make or break your experience at your gym. The question is, how important is it to you that the front desk person (who you see everyday) knows you be first name? How the membership person who took care of you when you joined, doesn’t even smile and hi when you walk past each other? Unfortunately, these are things that you won’t notice until after you’ve signed the dotted line. But what you can do is look at how the staff treats the other members while you are there. Not just in front look across the floor. Are employees interacting with the staff, or are they in a corner conversing with themselves? Worse, are they just looking at the TV’s on floor while there is someone who looks like they need assistance? Again, these are little things that you may not notice the first visit. BUT IF YOU ARE SOMEONE WHO JUST COMES IN, WORKS OUT AND LEAVES, then it really shouldn’t bother you right? Again, know what’s important to you before you walk through that door.

6. Commitment - Yes, most gyms will require you to commit to at least a year. But a year is really a small amount of time if you are committed to devoting the rest of your life in making health a priority. Just know this: if you go to the gym at least 4 times a month, you are utilizing the value of the gym. You will only see negligible fitness results, but you would have a reason to hold on to your membership.

So think about how big your commitment is.

7. Sale – Play hardball, but realize that whatever they are selling today they will never sell for the rest of the year. With that being said, most gyms usually have an ace up their sleeve for people who truly are on the fence. Just stick to your guns though. Some of those guys are REALLY good.

Ok, I’ll keep this short. You know what to look. Now hurry up! Because those gyms are closing early today!

]]> http://essentiallyfit.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=395 http://essentiallyfit.com/blog/?p=390 http://essentiallyfit.com/blog/?p=390#comments Tue, 28 Dec 2010 02:27:47 +0000 admin http://essentiallyfit.com/blog/?p=390 According to the latest study by the Department of Public Health at Oxford University, 25 percent of men in England were considered obese in 2008, compared to just 7 in 1986.

So what’s causing this alarming trend?

Apparently, the same things that’s happening in States: a plethora of cheap available food, and becoming ‘couch potatoes’. Men (and women) are simply not spending enough time getting enough physical activity during the day.

Obesity continues to be a common factor in the surges of the ‘Deadly Three’: cancer, diabetes and heart disease.

“It’s clear people are eating more, and today we’re seeing a continued increase in the amount of food available.”

A spokesman for the National Obesity Forum mentioned that the problem of obesity is going to get worse because not enough is being done to regulate the amount of fat, sugar and salt in processed foods.

How can we honestly regulate the amount of ingredients used in processed foods? The key word is ‘process’. The only way that we truly beat the obesity problem is to stop treating processed food as an option and stick to foods that are close to nature. Such as fruits and vegetables.

But in order to do that, we will have to give up being a little inconvenienced. We will have get comfortable with being uncomfortable. And for the time being, most people are just not ready to make such a huge commitment.

So what are your thoughts? What do you think needs to happen in order to reverse the trends of obesity in the US and the now the UK?

It made me think about us human beings. Our bodies are like airplanes in a lot of ways. For many of us we go through life not taking care of our bodies  and not paying attention to what we eat and how we exercise (if at all).

And then we get the wake up call, and it’s too late. We get diagnosed with one of the big three: cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. For the first time, we start thinking about what went wrong, and then we take on a reactive role in life. We play catch up trying to repair the damage, instead of making sure that the ‘parts’ were getting attention from the beginning.

To be truly healthy, one needs to take on a proactive approach to health and wellness.

For us, that means eating, clean healthy foods. A lot of times we make foods choices that are merely the lesser of two evils and we pat ourselves on the back with the ‘healthy’ choice that we made. A small amount of bad is still BAD if it consistently happens. Stick to the basics: natural fruit and veggies. Lean proteins and on the rare occasion, grains.

It also means…drum roll…. you GOTTA exercise. That’s sort of mandatory. Now how you approach it will depend on many factors. But the direction you choose has to be something that you stick with for the long haul. And the older you get, the more that you will need the exercise.

Rolls-Royce is scrambling right now, trying to repair it’s reputation and make sure that all of it’s planes are up to code. They even figured out the particular model that is having engine problems (the Trent 900 engine).

What can we learn from this in regards to your health?

Do not wait until there’s a problem before you start acting on the solution. By the time the symptoms start to show, it’s too late and then your whole purpose will be that of playing catchup. Maybe you can reverse the ailment, but many times it truly is too late and all you can do is deal with it.

Be Well

The response to the collaboration was extreme. KFC’s ran out of chicken from the hordes of people looking to redeem their coupon.

Needless to say, a lot of people were ticked off (to put it lightly).

But she also got a lot of heat from other organizations. KFC has long been a target by groups for it’s treatment of animals.

This is all not to mention, by the way, that Oprah is also a past PETA award winner, and the animal-rights folks are feeling a little burned.

But one of the most vocal and visible protesters was a man named Sean Croxton. In a video, he BLASTED Oprah and KFC in a rant that caught the attention of the media, and eventually Oprah herself.

SO YOU KNOW OF COURSE WE WILL BE TALKING ABOUT THAT ONE!

I’m just wondering how he made it past the hired Snipers…..

Tune in TODAY at 5PM EST/ 2PM PST. You can listen to the show at

http://bit.ly/seancroxton

or you can call in to the show with questions at
646.378.0730

Take care,
Wess

PS. You can see the infamous ‘Oprah’ video here..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPlxcj8o9dg&p

-About Sean Croxton

Sean Croxton of Underground Wellness

The word most often used to describe Sean is PASSIONate! This passion comes from a lifelong love of fitness and health and a dream to revolutionize the way THE WORLD thinks about health. Recognizing the failures of health care, Sean promotes the concept of self care. In order to regain and/or maintain superb health, we must become more responsible for ourselves.

After graduating from San Diego State University in 2001 with a Bachelor’s in Kinesiology (emph: fitness, nutrition, and health), Sean began his journey as a certified personal trainer. Despite his extensive education in health, he was met with much failure as clients got heavier and sicker. Client programs consisted of endless cardio and the horrific Food Guide Pyramid. Rather than accept defeat, Sean took his failures as an opportunity for growth. He has since spent thousands of hours educating himself on the many truths that eluded him throughout his formal education, often joking that he got his Master’s from Amazon.com.

After years of study and a litany of classes and course, Sean works with clients to uncover the root cause(s) of their health challenges. He works by phone with individuals from all over the world by phone/Skype from his home office in San Diego, CA. Sean takes a holistic, functional approach to rebuilding health from the ground up. As a Functional Diagnostic Nutritionist (FDN) and Certified Metabolic Typing Advisor (CMTA), and currently enrolled in the Functional Medicine University program, Sean does not focus on symptoms. Rather, he is solely concerned with uncovering the root cause(s) of health challenges.

The typical UW client is one who has been told time and time again that nothing is wrong, that it is “all in their head”. Yet, behind every symptom is an underlying malfunction lurking within.

http://twitter.com/ugwellness

http://www.undergroundwellness.com

And the link? Obesity. According to the CDCP, one out of every three women and one out of every four men have been diagnosed with arthritis. And that number is double the amount of those who are not obese.

The irony of this situation is that we are living in one the most advance times medically. If that is the case, then it’s more important than ever to get a handle of our eating habits and physical lifestyle.

Here are four things that you can do help prevent the development of Arithtis:

1. Get off the couch. Yup, we all know that exercise is good for your heart and cardiovascular system. But regular exercise also helps to keep your bones, muscles and joints healthy.

2. Stretch. The older you get, the less flexible your joints and bones become. Stretching will increase muscle tone and can help boost the range of motion of your joints. Make sure that you warm up your muscles before you stretch, as stretching ’cold’ muscle can actually increase your chance of injury.

3. Get enough nutrients. Your bones need a number of nutrients to stay strong and healthy. Make sure that you are eating a well balanced diet with plenty of fruits and veggies. Make sure that you are especially getting enough calcium and vitamin C, E and even vitamin D!

4. Say yes to H20. Water keeps your bones lubricated so they don’t rub up against each other and wear out sooner. Yet another reason to make sure to drink eight cups a day.

If you want more information about dealing with and preventing this extremely painful condition, check out: arthritis.org.

Nicole Brewer catapulted into the public spotlight as a contestant of the popular weight loss show on NBC. Having lost OVER 100lbs, she has learned a few lessons along the way.

Come listen as she shares diet and exercise tips, as well as the mental attitude needed to make lasting lifestyle changes.

Nicole Brewer is one of the contestants on NBC’s “TBL 7: Couples.” Nicole Brewer teamed up with her fiancé (now husband), Damien Gur…ganious. Nicole Brewer is a celebrity wardrobe stylist from Brooklyn, New York.

Though she was a dancer as a little girl and competitive in high school sports, Nicole Brewer gained her “freshman 50″ in college and has been a yo-yo dieter ever since. Nicole Brewer learned emotional eating habits from her mother, a diabetic who craved sweets and used food to both celebrate and commiserate.

Losing her mother unexpectedly to heart disease has inspired Nicole Brewer to embark on a mental and physical makeover, to prevent the onset of diseases that still plague her family. Nicole Brewer is glowing on the inside, but wanted to be radiant on her wedding day and walk down the aisle with confidence—in a fabulous strapless gown—to meet her best friend and the man of her dreams.

And She Did Just That.