Healthy Lifestyle Bloggers

Just for Jen, some more details on the new baby girl who was brought into our world yesterday. I don't have a lot of details except what Mr. Bear has told me. And boys know very little about these things. Her name is Matea Ryan (not sure if that is spelled correctly) and she weighs 6.5 lbs. Sorry that is all this bear knows.

Yesterday, Mr. Bear went to visit during the day and they had an eventful day. Mr. Bear was holding her and then she started to turn purple, so they called in the nurse and they put her in NICU. They gave her some antibiotics and she is fine now from what I know, she just needed a little extra care. Luckily, our good friend's mom is a NICU nurse at the hospital and Baby M is being well taken care of. Mr. Bear helped out and picked up Big Sister (2 years old) from grandma's house and brought her to the hospital when all was calmer. Big Sister told Mr. Bear, "she's sooo tiny!" Mr. Bear totally agreed! He told me Baby M is so small with little toes and all. He had an exhausting day and he was so stressed out from the experience.

I went to visit this morning to check in on mom and Baby M, but they were not in their room, mom and dad were probably in the NICU with Baby M. I will have to go back to visit later. I am just dying to meet her.

For a long time I had been interested in personal development, fitness and weight loss. I had attended seminars, listened to audio cd’s, and read hundreds of books. In the field of exercise, my mentor was Bill Philips described recently by Outside magazine as “the most successful fitness author of all time,” author of the bestseller Body-for-LIFE which has sold in excess of 6 million copies.In the field of personal development Anthony Robbins or Tony Robbins an American self-help writer and professional speaker. I even did his fire walking exercise. He was the author of  Unlimited Power: The New Science of Personal Achievement, and Awaken the Giant Within.

 

One day I was sitting and contemplating my life. I have been blessed with many good things in my life. But I have also experienced many knocks that life could throw at us. Having helped hundreds if not thousands of people in my capacity as a fitness and diet coach, I found that I myself had committed the cardinal sin. I was forgetting to look after myself. I had lost control of my body, and had turned my back on my goals.

It was at this time, that I owe a debt of thanks to my sister, Su, who introduced me to The Secret by Rhonda Byrne a book that changed my life. A beautifully written and published book, with a simple message that one’s positive thoughts are powerful magnets that attract wealth, health, happiness…

I set about creating the health, vitality, energy, fitness, endurance and body that I deserved, and badly wanted! I had to free the true potential within me, by being  committed to taking ownership of my life, believing in myself and creating my dreams to bring a focus to my life. I was determined to at last take pleasure in the journey that is my life.

Creating a healthy lifestyle through exercise, nutrition and relaxation techniques had always been one of my primary interests. I have been involved in fitness almost all of my life. For many years I was in peak physical condition, with healthy eating and exercise a prominent part of my life. But with a sporting injury resulting in both my hamstrings severely tearing, and then overdoing it during my early days of rehabilitation leading to me tearing my right oblique muscle, leaving me incapacitated, I proceeded to gain a lot of weight, and instead of having a muscular lean body, I found myself laden with to much body fat. 

Rather than letting these circumstances take control of my life, I set out to rebuild my body by designing a programme to rebuild myself and regain my self esteem and zest for life. Fit at 40 something was my quest, and now its my desire for you, no matter how old you are. I want to help make the difference in your life.

This blog will carry my thoughts, ideas and knowledge to help you make changes in your life.

Yours in health and fitness

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Last weekend, Mr. Bear and I went to the river for some fun and relaxation. The weather was beautiful except for some wind. It was quite a busy weekend at Lake Havasu because of the Desert Storm Poker Run. That meant that there were a lot of fast, big boats zipping around. Mr. Bear loved it! I had a great time getting the opportunity to relax and do nothing but enjoy the sun and time with Mr. Bear.

Even though we were out there from Thursday to Sunday, we only got our boat in the water on Saturday. It was breezy, which isn’t the best conditions for our small boat but we went across the lake with no problems. We watched the Desert Storm shootout and then cruised the channel by the London Bridge. It was ridiculously packed; there was so much boat traffic it was crazy! Luckily, we found a good spot to park the boat and hang out in the channel for a while. After a few hours, we decided to head back to the other side of the lake where we were staying. The wind had really started to pick up a lot and it didn’t seem like it would be letting up anytime soon. This is where our adventure began.

The lake was crazy with huge wells! You would have thought we were in the middle of the ocean. People were coming back from the lake in boats larger than ours and more equipped for the crazy swells telling people not to go out there is they didn’t need to. Well, we needed to go out there, we didn’t have much of a choice, and we had to get back to the other side. So we headed out. We got about ½ mile out and the swells were so big we kept going up and down. Mr. Bear is pretty good at maneuvering the boat and was doing really well, then we came down pretty hard off of one of the large swells and the screws holding the foot throttle pulled out. Yikes!!! No power to the engine!!

Mr. Bear was calm and had to think fast, since water was going to come into the boat given that our boat was small and those swells were huge. I was ready to put my life jacket on and do what ever needed to be done. Mr. Bear told me to lie on the floor and hold the foot throttle in place and so I did and he drove the boat back to the channel. He says that he was almost ready to give an abandon ship order if he wasn't able to get the boat out of the lake. We actually didn’t take in too much water and I stayed pretty dry, but then again I was lying on the floor under the bow. Mr. Bear, on the other hand, did get wet.

Mr. Bear parked the boat and he was going to take the ferry to the other side of the lake, get the truck and trailer and drive it around and get the boat. There was no way to get the boat across without power. Of course, the ferry was shut down! Uh duh, the wind and the water was crazy. Luckily, Mr. Bear found a couple of guys in a boat better equipped for such conditions and asked if they would bring him over and they did. They got over to the other side of the lake with no problems. I waited with the boat for 2 hours until Mr. Bear could get around and we got the boat on the trailer and back to the other side.

What a crazy adventure! We had never seen the lake like that. While I was waiting with the boat, I saw other boats being towed back to the channel. It was still a great relaxing weekend with a little blip of adventure. And of course, when we left on Sunday the wind had die down and the weather was perfect to take the boat out. We always get perfect weather at the river when we are ready to leave.

A

Here's an interesting video with some interviews of various vendors at an Anti Aging Trade Show in Las Vegas last month...

Ok..here we are again! Time to get that heart rate up and boost that metabolism!

Here’s the challenge:

*Walking lunges - 10 each leg

*Push ups - 12

*Walking lunges - 10 each leg

*Push ups - 12

*Walking lunges - 10 each leg

*Push ups - 12

You can do the challenge one time through for a quick energy boost and to get your heart rate up, or use it as a circuit and repeat 3x to burn some calories and get your cardio workout in for the day! Good luck! Let me know how it goes!

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Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

My kids love pancakes.  But pancake mix (especially the whole-wheat variety) can cost quite a bit, and for what? A little flour! Give me a break.  It kills me to spend money on mixes when it only saves a few steps.  However, I’ve long been a fan of the book “Make a Mix Cookery”, where you make your own mixes. My copy old, pages falling out, but I love it!  So my pancake mix recipe is 2 cups whole wheat flour, 3 cups white flour, 1 1/4 cup powdered milk, 1/4 cup sugar, 1/8 Cup baking powder, and 2 TBLS salt. I store it in an airtight container, and write the recipe to make pancakes right on the box. 

These are the best pancakes we have ever had!  Cereal Boy ate 4 huge ones!  Then he tried to eat everyone else’s.   I have some “lite” syrup with half the sugar, yet no fake sugar.  And they are truly divine. 

Here are some add-in ideas for pancakes:

• Berries mixed into the batter prior to cooking
• cinnamon and apple chunks
• finely chopped nuts
• poppyseeds and lemon zest
• chocolate chips
• coconut and bananas

I always top my own pancakes with yogurt.  What’s your family’s favorite way for pancakes?

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Last Friday I stumbled upon a garage sale in the next neighborhood, (where I don't normally drive but the city has thoughtfully decided to resurface the major street we normally use to get to anywhere east of us) and found some new pedometers for 75 cents each. They rolled around in the bottom of my purse over the weekend, and yesterday I quasi-cleaned it out discovering them anew. I took one in to give to Ornery, who was only slightly impressed by my find, especially since it didn't appear to work. A quick tug on the plastic battery guard and voila, the little numbers appeared!

Here is what the very informative, one sided, 4X4" paper enclosed says in 3 point text:

Product Characteristic
Counting the Step

Wearing Instruction
1) When Starting the count the meter, the display show "00000"
2) Using the clip that behind the unit to fix the stepping meter horizontally

Operational Manual
1) This stepping meter can only count correctly under the flat plant
2) Under the following condition, the stepping meter can't count correctly
(i) Moon Walking, Wearing Sandal
(ii) When walking in the tricky condition
(iii) Vibration without walking
3) The stepping meter can be reset by pressing "reset" Button

I'm not sure I would have invested my $1.50 had I known I would not be able to count my steps in the tricky condition. (?)

So said the headline published around the world this past week:

From the newspaper article:

“Vitamins taken by around a third of the population do not extend life and may even cause premature death, according to a respected group of international scientists.

“After reviewing 67 studies involving more than 230,000 men and women, the experts say there is no convincing evidence that taking supplements of the antioxidant vitamins A, C and E can make you healthier.” More here.

We were as stunned as anyone else at the timing and impact of this huge report.

As you know from the “Are Your Vitamins Safe?” report, this is only the most recent in a growing number of studies finding that synthetic vitamins (either from a lab beaker or isolated from a plant or animal) are worthless or even risky for a significant number of people. How can this be?

Here’s a big reason:

These isolated synthetic vitamins are not absorbed and utilized properly by the body.

That’s because - the ‘main vitamin’ ingredient, (e.g. A, E, C, etc.) which is extracted by synthetic vitamin makers, does not include the chemical cousins and other ingredients that main vitamin comes with in its natural form. Apparently, the body needs these “cofactors” to absorb the main vitamin.

It’s cheaper to extract just the main vitamin. Only it appears now that the resulting synthetic vitamins are useless or worse.

What’s the alternative?

Today there is a new class of multis, whole-food multis. They put the whole food in the supplement (minus water and fiber), rather than just the isolated main vitamin or mineral.

So that’s the story.

Whole Food Nation makes one of these whole-food multis. I’m telling you that - in case you’d like to try a month’s supply of these whole food multis at no cost. So you can compare it to your current synthetic vitamins.

You can test this whole food multi free for a month. Go here: The Vitamin Exchange Program. Ends May 15.

Next issue, I’ll review the latest weird diet craze: the Inuit meat and blubber diet. Have you heard of it?

P.S. Affiliates and employees of Whole Food Nation not allowed to participate.

Source: here

© 2008 Thanks for reading. Peruse my blog for more great content.

My Other Websites: Are Your Vitamins Safe? Whole Food Nation Affiliate Link

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So I promised you an update two weeks ago about my plateau, formerly known as “not a plateau“.  I had discussed changing my eating habits even further by cutting out some of the sweet cheats I’d still been eating and by adding more healthy calories to my diet.  I did those things, and to a large extent, they did not make a difference.  I was surprised because I really thought for sure that those changes would help solve the problem, and they didn’t.  They did, however, help me to realize some things about my frame of mind during this plateau.

I’ve realized, through prayer and talking to friends, that I am relying way too much on the number on the scale.  And I don’t think it’s healthy.  And aren’t I trying to just be healthy?  Well I can’t let my weight loss become an obsession and go and screw up my mental health, right?!  So this has all brought me to the conclusion that I need to cut my time on the scale down to once a week for a weekly weigh-in and that’s it.

(more…)

This light cake is traditionally eaten at Easter and the red painted hard-boiled egg that it is placed in the centre is an indication of this. When making at any other time of the year however, it is optional whether or not you have the red egg for decoration.

The cake is nice and light inside, with the mastic creating a light stringiness when you break it into pieces (traditionally you break it with your hands and don't cut it with a knife).


Ingredients

1kg very good quality hard flour (Canadian Robin Hood is best)
80g fresh yeast
300g sugar
5 eggs (4 for the cake and 1 to spread on top)
150ml warm water
200g good quality butter
Grated rind from 1 orange
1 teaspoon mahlep
2 vanilla essences
¼ teaspoon grated mastic

Preparation

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water and mix in ¼ of the flour.

Cover the mixture and let it rest.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan.

Set aside 2 tablespoons of the butter.

Melt the sugar in the remaining melted butter and transfer to a mixer and beat well.

Add the 4 eggs one at a time and continue beating for 4 minutes.

Place the remaining flour in a large bowl and add the orange rind, mastic, mahlep and 1 vanilla essence.

Add the egg, sugar and butter mixture that you have beaten in the mixture.

Add the yeast and flour mixture.

Knead well, using the remaining 2 tablespoons of melted butter to wet your hands while kneading.

You should knead the mixture using the method of folding and spreading.

Cover the dough and let it rest in a warm place until it has doubled in size.

Divide the dough in 2 and “knit” the 2 lengths into “plaits” and join the ends to make a circular shape.

Again, let it rest in a warm place until it has doubled in size.

Beat the remaining egg with the other vanilla essence and 2 tablespoons of water.

Spread this lightly across the dough with a soft brush.

Bake in a preheated moderate oven (180 degrees) for 45 minutes or until it has turned a golden colour.

Eat and Enjoy!

Ed. Note: The debate over organic produce vs. conventionally grown produce is constantly in flux, making it really hard to decipher what the truth is. I don’t claim to have the de facto bottom line, but I have come to a few conclusions…so far. I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas. And if you enjoy articles like these, please consider subscribing to Almost Fit. Thanks.

If you’re concerned with what you eat, you are bound to run into the ongoing argument surrounding conventional vs. organic produce. Stepping into the food fight of thought on the subject is like stumbling into a game of grown-up Dodge ball, with people on both sides hurling 30-pound watermelons of opinion at their opponents, with you somewhere in the middle just trying to buy a couple of limes.

While the battle might be engaging, in my estimation the truth about the healthfulness of organic vs. conventional from a statistics perspective is surprisingly simple:

Like life on Mars, I don’t think anyone really knows for sure what the truth is. Even if they think they do. (more…)

Ed. Note: The debate over organic produce vs. conventionally grown produce is constantly in flux, making it really hard to decipher what the truth is. I don’t claim to have the de facto bottom line, but I have come to a few conclusions…so far. I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas. And if you enjoy articles like these, please consider subscribing to Almost Fit. Thanks.

If you’re concerned with what you eat, you are bound to run into the ongoing argument surrounding conventional vs. organic produce. Stepping into the food fight of thought on the subject is like stumbling into a game of grown-up Dodge ball, with people on both sides hurling 30-pound watermelons of opinion at their opponents, with you somewhere in the middle just trying to buy a couple of limes.

While the battle might be engaging, in my estimation the truth about the healthfulness of organic vs. conventional from a statistics perspective is surprisingly simple:

Like life on Mars, I don’t think anyone really knows for sure what the truth is. Even if they think they do. (more…)

I am one of those rare birds lucky enough to have both a blog and a vlog. Most everyone knows what a blog is: a shortened version of "web log." This is a site where people can post just about anything that interests them, and, hopefully, the masses. There are blogs about everything one can possibly imagine. Most are very entertaining. I enjoy visiting them, checking them out, seeing what's new and interesting. And though, originally, they were mostly just in the form of the written word, now quit a few blogs have branched off into other areas of communication. Like videos. Technology has made it a breeze to add vids right onto most blogs with simple cutting and pasting. Heck, even I can do it.

The other side of the coin is something close to my heart: vlogs. The name derives from Video Log, and just like blogs these sites can be about any topic that interests you. The major difference between blogs and vlogs is the amount of video. Take my site, livelife365.com, for example. My goal when I created this site was to offer a venue to share my information using a video format. And, save for a few bits of text here or there, I have been true to my vision. A visit to my site offers you tips on diet and nutrition, exercise and motivation, self-help and overcoming adversity. As well as entertaining and funny songs, videos, and rants. And all of them are in video form. You will not find a written piece, like this one, anywhere on the site. And that to me is a true vlog.

But a funny thing happened while I was promoting my site, visiting other sites, mostly blogs, networking with all of the wonderful people who make up the blogging community. I wanted to be one of them, join them. And not just as the new kid on the block with the vlog. I wanted to be part of their blogging community with my very own blog. An interesting self realization, coming from a guy who thought that video-driven sites were going to be the next big thing.

The fact is, I have come to understand that while video is here to stay and will eventually be everywhere, on every site, mark my words. The blog will never die. Just like newspapers. Books. Magazines. Because there were many who thought that any paper-based from of media would eventually dry up and blow away, never being able to compete with the convenience of an electronic media. Not the case. True, sales and subscriptions may be down, but I honestly believe that newspapers will never die. And neither will the blog. There is room in this here town for the both of us.

I want to take a moment to thank all of the great people with whom I have networked and met online while promoting livelife365.com. I feel lucky and blessed to be part of such a kind and giving community...even if I do have a vlog. But, now, also a blog.

So, read or watch, as long as you are doing all that you can to make each day count, living your life every day and every way. Until next time...

peace,
Mike