First Health Info

For those who believe lifting weights will make you lose feminine curves, I am here to say it's a myth. We simply don't have enough testosterone naturally to produce extreme muscle mass.  We can create a firm, tone body with the help of weight resistance training. A small part of how we are built is also based on genetics . Every woman is different with the look weight training provides. This is called life and normal. As long as we maintain our lifting program along with healthy eating , we can enjoy a well-sculpted physique for life.  We may see over-developed women bodybuilders who appear manly but this is often times created using illegal drugs, steroids, and male sex hormones. For us regular gals not on the bodybuilding circuit and just hitting it hard in the gym, this is not our norm. We may create some muscle, but nothing to the degree of lean mass enhanced with steroids. This is a whole other level of muscle development not applicable to active women in the gym. Unfortu

We have all been the victim of our own bad habits!   Sometimes those bad habits seem so far entrenched in our every day lives that we are helpless against them.  No matter how hard we know we shouldn't be doing them, having a lack of mindfulness can lead you to not even realize you are sabotaging yourself until it's too late! Bringing mindfulness into your life can be so powerful with a small amount of planning and some ingenuity, even breaking some bad habits you thought you had ZERO power to overcome. When I was in the corporate world, my life was riddled with unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with the stress and depression I experienced on a daily basis.  Of these coping mechanisms perhaps one of the most damaging to my physical health was a nasty habit of having a martini almost every night I came home. I knew I needed to stop this habit but in the short-term it became a release...a way to wind down from the stresses of the day and medicate myself to a calmer place. But h

The only stimulant I use to improve my workouts is coffee. Unregulated supplements come with too many health risks and who knows what's really in the stuff. Coffee contains caffeine, tastes amazing, full of beneficial antioxidants and a natural stimulant to boost my workouts. Chronic studies have provided positive findings for caffeinated coffee improving athletic performance and other health benefits. It is said to increase our metabolism, reduce induced exercise muscle pain, improve mental focus, increase fat burning, and reduce the risk of disease. The thing is you don't need that much coffee for effective results. More is not better and one to no more than 2 cups of black coffee is what's recommended according to research. I thoroughly enjoy my large mug every morning and admit to adding a small amount of creamer. I haven't been able to develop a taste for straight up black coffee. I happen to be one of those people who is caffeine sensitive so drink half-calf and

Adopting a healthy lifestyle and achieving fitness goals can provide a feeling of accomplishment in the beginning. We plug into our fitness apps, fit bits, eating right and motivated to exercise. We are in fitness euphoria and experiencing self-motivation at its peak. We are determined and feel nothing will get in the way of reaching our goals, right? This is awesome but the struggle is usually not in starting but in the maintaining . We all need to start the process of getting healthy but even more important is being able to continue the lifestyle. As we progress in our fitness journey, things often become less important. Our determined mental game starts to soften. Week three of the start may not feel as good or exciting anymore. Other things take priority and somehow being too busy to exercise or eat right dampen our motivation. Week four seems to be filled with obligations that become more important than the promise we made to ourselves to get healthy. Week five may involve a lon

Are you filling your negative space?  STOP! Negative space is the concept of using a lack of "content" to create a feeling, an action or to communicate the importance of the most important element in a creative design. Some of the best advertisements use negative space and we tend to be attracted to the simplistic idea of using only a logo or a simple statement surrounded by nothing else.  We tend to think of these advertisements as "clean", "upscale", "classy" or "intelligent".    In fact the proper use of negative space in advertising can be very elegant. BUT, we don't tend to place the same importance on negative space in our every day lives!  In fact, we often look at holes in our day as some type of emptiness or poor planning on our part.  Maybe we even think we are being lazy by not filling that void? When you encounter negative space in your day, USE it as an opportunity to practice mindfulness! Take inventory of what is impo

Hey Motiv8ers! This month we want to challenge you all to a  Mindfulness Challenge! Mindfulness is all about taking every moment in it�s current state and not attributing emotion to anything you experience.  Our feelings are experienced from a source of either love (positive) or fear (negative).  Feelings come and go.  Emotions however are feelings with stories attached to them!  When we are not mindful of our emotions, sometimes they can get the best of us and start to control our actions or create a false reality.   Much of our stress in life comes from our reality being mismatched with the expectations we create through our emotions! By far the worst emotion we can experience is Powerlessness!  The range of fear-based feelings we can have whether negativity, sadness, rejection or anger cannot compare to the sense that we have NO CONTROL over our future nor the ability to impact our world around us.  So here�s your first Mindfulness Lesson! Do this quick stress exercise to help you c

Getting fit has nothing to do with going on a diet. In fact, I came up with an acronym for the 'diet' word and how it affects us: D: Depressing I: Illogical E: Extreme T: Taxing How many times have you heard someone say they are on a diet? Diet trends are numerous and marketed ad nauseam. Diets may have a place in clinical scenarios but really not something for us regular people who may be sedentary or even active adults wanting to get back in shape. Nutrition does play the largest role in our health and fitness . This doesn't mean restricting our calories by means of a fad diet is the way to a fitter body. It simply means eating better food for our goals. Actually not eating enough can work against us causing our body to hold onto fat stores. Diets are also not lifetime sustainable because they can be too restrictive and remove important macronutrients from our daily food intake. We function best eating all macronutrients including lean proteins, healthy fats, and good car