Get Serious About Keeping A Healthy Weight - Change Your Mind Set.

When we begin our journey of making changes to better our lifestyle lets look at some ways to live healthier happier lives. Its important to create a blueprint of what you want to achieve. In doing so you can edit it whenever you wish. This will help you keep on top of all the things you want to achieve and need to do to reach your goals. Diet and body weight are related to our health status. Good nutrition is important to the growth and development of children and keeping all of us at our healthy best. A healthy diet and keeping to an exercise routine, from walk-running to yoga, also helps Americans reduce their risks for many health conditions, including:

• Overweight and Obesity
• Malnutrition
• Heart Disease
• High Blood Pressure
• Type 2 Diabetes
• Some Cancers
• Fatigue and Lacking Energy
• Inability to sleep well
• ...and many other health issues

Because weight is influenced by energy (calories) consumed and expended, interventions to improve weight can support changes in diet or physical activity. Doing some research about how you are caring for your body and the foods you ingest are a good way to assess your own bodies condition. This can help enhance and change individuals' knowledge and skills, reduce exposure to foods low in nutritional value and high in calories, or increase opportunities for physical activity.

One thing is for sure, when we become active and responsible about the health of our bodies we learn to fuel it with good calories, energy and lasting health. What people need to do is see themselves in a state of observance. Meaning instead of seeing yourself as a body with a soul, look at yourself as a soul with a body. Learn to appreciate and take care of your body and it will take care of you. Healthy mind and the body will follow. That saying: You are what you eat, is more valid than you may think it is. Its like filling up your vehicle with lousy gas and expecting it to run at its best. It will sputter, run slower, stall and cause you more headaches' than you should have in your life. Where as if you fill your vehicle with good, clean gas it will run smoother, longer and have less wear and tear on its engine. Well the body isn't much different when it comes to that principle. Feed it poorly and you'll get poor results. Feed it healthy and you'll get healthy stronger results.

The keys to maintaining optimal health are as follows. Individuals who eat the recommended 5 or more servings of fruit and vegetables per day are less likely to be overweight or obese and less likely to suffer chronic disease. Fruit and veggies are our bodies cleaners. They are vital to good health and preventing many diseases. Instead of reaching for those salty or sugary snacks, reach for those fruits and veggies. You can eat as much as you like of them so long as you don't add in abunch of unhealthy additives such as dressings, sauces, too much salt and sugar. Stop eating all those processed foods too. They may taste good but beware.. they aren't good for your body. Have you checked out the ingredients label on those processed foods. Its ridiculous! Due to all the chemicals, additives, preservatives, etc that these foods are made with, its no wonder you feel lethargic and fatigued. A key rule to rely on when looking for healthy foods to eat is: If you can't pronounce it don't eat it!  

A key point to remember. When buying fruits and veggies, try to buy organic fruits and veggies. They are cleaner foods and have none or much less pesticides and are never GMO - genetically modified organism foods. Its also very important to hydrate your body. I'm not talking about drinking soda, coffee, teas, artificially flavored drinks etc. I'm talking about the one main substance that is the elixir of life. Did you know that the majority of illnesses that lead to serious health issues are created by not being hydrated? That most people in our society and probably around the world are chronically dehydrated? According to healthgrades.com and other medical resources researched, the following information is vital as to the state of dehydration and why its so important to make it a habit of drinking more clean, filtered water as a daily routine. Dehydration is an abnormal condition in which the body's cells are deprived of an adequate amount of water.

                                                                                                                     

Water and fluids make up about 90% of fluids throughout the body. Its distributed throughout muscles, bones, organs, tissues, cells, spinal and cerebral-fluids and plasma throughout the body and is crucial to many of the body's processes. Dehydration negatively affects important bodily functions, including toxin elimination, delivery of nutrients and oxygen to the cells of the body, energy production, and joint lubrication. Severe dehydration affects every body system and can also impact the proper balance of vital electrolytes. Sodium and potassium are electrolytes essential to healthy functioning of the body and critical processes, such as muscle function and a normal heart rhythm. Complications of severe dehydration can be serious and life threatening and include shock, coma and death. Dehydration is categorized as mild, moderate or severe, based on the extent of the body’s fluid loss. Moderate and severe dehydration can be a life-threatening emergency.

Infants, children, athletes and the elderly are particularly prone to dehydration and severe complications, although dehydration can occur in any age group or population. You can learn to make your own electrolyte drink so there won't be all those chemicals in it. Or you can simply add a lemon slice to your water for more flavor. Get creative with the many ways you can drink water with flavors organically. Its really amazing all of the flavors you can create and enjoy which are truly healthy for your body. But you have to change your thinking about drinking more water. Its only because the manufacturers came up with all sorts of artificial flavored drinks with way too much sugar, that you may think you don't like water. Change your thinking, change your life.

And of course a BIG part of feeling our best is to exercise. Develop an exercise routine that works for you. You may have to experiment with different types of exercise routines before you find the one that works well for you. But either way.. get a routine going. The more you do this the more it will become habit, a good habit. People have a misconception and think that if they are on their feet throughout their workday that they don't need to exercise. This is far from truth. If you are some one who is on your feet all day you still need to "unwind" or "de-stress" after work. You may not have to do a routine that targets weightloss as much for someone who sits all day at work. But a routine that de-stresses the mind and body is key to better health. If you are someone who sits most of the time at work an exercise routine that will target weightloss is key for you to achieve better health. Whichever routine you choose, any one of them will benefit your body, mind and spirit. You just have to get started. Have courage and commit to a balanced way of living. Your journey of making changes to better your lifestyle is well within your reach. Some research information and excepts have be taken from www.healthgrades.com/conditions/dehydration . Enjoy the day.

Copyright(c)2014.Get Serious About Keeping A Healthy Weight-Change Your Mind Set.Written by Sherrie Vitello. All Rights Reserved.  

Fear - You Will No Longer Control Me

We see it all of the time. With friends and family that are into something that just causes them pain and suffering. We wonder to ourselves why on earth are they still in the situation they are in? Could it be that they are happier in misery? Perhaps. But for the most part it could be that these people, in these unhappy and unhealthy situations, just don't know how to get out of them or they are afraid to take steps on their own to change for the better. Mainly due to the fear that it wouldn't work out on their own or they just can't accomplish surviving on their own. By feeling that way these people think its safer to stay where they are. Without realizing they have placed themselves their lives and their happiness in a dormant state. Allowing fear to take center stage they decide to stay in a unhealthy, unhappy relationship. People who do this are actually not allowing themselves the chance to live a happy life. Because the main root of why they don't change their situation is due to the fear of failure. They are too afraid to take the steps that are necessary to better their lives. We all have fear to some degree due to the unknown. But when we want something so badly, we can taste it, people can learn to overcome that fear. We can learn to prevent fears or anxiety(because they go hand in hand), mostly unrealistic fears, from controlling the outcome of what we are aspiring to do. Its time to stop ruining your own quality of life. A beautiful saying I came across always helps me to get passed any fear (or anxiety) I may have about accomplishing something. I love this saying so much, I keep it written on a peice of paper and taped to my bathroom mirror. I use it as a positive affirmation to help me start my day. 

"Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgement that something else is more important." 

There are some people that have no fear or anxiety about much of anything. For these people everything is a personal challenge. Like the quotation above to them situations are seen as their call to action that something must change. People with this personality usually have high self esteem and they make it a point to overcome any circumstance or overcome any challenge. As far as any measurement as to how many people in our society are like this remains unknown. For the most part most people will be a victim of their own fears or anxiety at some point of their lives. The levels of fear will differ in all of us. For some its very low but for others it can be on a high level and interfere with their daily lives. Studies have shown the relations among fear, anxiety and stress can be a precursor to health issues. This can effect our blood pressure, our cortisol levels in the body which can cause weight gain and due to fear and anxiety causing stress, has been related to illness. Also for people who are healing from an illness i.e. cancer or healing from surgery, having an overactive level of fear or anxiety can prevent a person from healing faster. It may even cause complications. The more we've learned about the effects of fear on our bodies the more questions we seem to have about it. Long ago when humans were first living on the earth, their brains used the flight or fight response, which is another form of fear, to help them to survive. For other mammals, it is still very apparent today. But for humans, we've grown away from that to some degree because of how we've advanced in our existence. And the fact that there are no longer giant creatures looking to eat us. Even though some creatures from way back then still exist today, they are not as big nor do they look to hunt us. So long as we don't get near them. 

There is help for those who have acknowledged that there is a problem. Some people can get counseling. Some people may have to use medications to help them with their fears or anxiety. But all of us can actually help ourselves overcome this crippling affliction of fear. It starts with acceptance and acknowledging that time has come to change. You deserve the chance to be as happy as any other person, no matter what their lifestyle is like. Fear is not prejudice and it doesn't care who you are or what walk of life you're in. All it wants to do is destroy your happiness and even your health. When we look at fear for what it is, as a disease of our emotions, we can set a course for a healthy prognosis. But we have to work at it and it will most likely be an everlasting affliction. However, with proper application of rendering fear helpless, we can overcome the control it has on us. One thing you can do right now is go stand in front of your mirror, tell yourself, "Fear you will no longer control me, I love myself, I trust myself, I respect myself. I have worth and value as a human being."  Write that down and the above affirmation about courage. Then tape it to your mirror and read it out loud every single morning and in the evening before bed. Read the sentence then look into your eyes and repeat it. As you keep doing this action your brain begins to wrap itself around your words and you will begin to understand and apply the meaning of what you say to yourself every day in that mirror. In doing so you will begin to think that way. You will begin to change in your thinking. In reference to all people the quote "As a man thinketh, so is he." (Or as written in the book: Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth - Proverbs 23:7 -"As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.") No matter what you believe those few words are true to form.

Copyright(c)2014.Fear-You Will No Longer Control Me.Written by Sherrie Vitello. All Rights Reserved.

How Addiction Effects Our Life of Purpose.

"The purpose of life is a life of purpose" When I read this quote I realized that this is what everyone needs to live by in order to feel content, gratitude and happy about their lives. Having a purpose. When a human-being has no purpose in their lives they are much more susceptible to staying or becoming addicts. Be it drugs, alcohol, over-eating, over-shopping, to name a few. Everyone of us feels the need to have purpose, be needed, feel worthy, have approval, even being looked up to. When we lack those feelings we feel empty inside and we tend to "make up" (sort of speak) for that emptiness. We do that by developing habits. Some people develop good habits and some people develop bad habits. When we are addicts we need to stop the bad habit and replace it with a good habit. So its stand to reason that when a person doesn't have these emotional-tanks filled to some degree, they are more likely to fall off the path of staying clean and sober.

We must continue at all costs to strive to have purpose in our lives. It won't be given to us. With purpose we are given the air under our wings that lifts us up away from our unhealthy addictions. Why does having a life of purpose effect us so much? I did some research about this and found some very interesting facts about how "purpose" effects our brains. Because of our limbic system located in our brains. This part of our brain directs emotion and behavior. The limbic system sets the emotional tone of information before it reaches the cortex, where most of our thinking and learning takes place. Our limbic system interprets and directs emotions and behavior. Then these emotions are sent to the cortex where it is processed. When we have purpose in our lives we have emotions of fulfillment and contentment. This is a positive state of mind and our limbic system interprets this as positive information.

Which gives us a feeling of purpose and directs our behavior to achieve and meet our goals. Of course when our feelings get hurt or we have emotional trauma in our lives, it makes us feel unhappy as if we have no purpose at all. Especially when we have not learned how to cope with or deal with negative situations very well. These kinds of emotions can lead us to finding ways to comfort ourselves, over eat, self medicate or drink too much, to forget how we're really feeling. And this happens alot to alot of people. Now think for a moment just how using drugs, alcohol or overeating (which are the 3 most common forms of addiction) will effect us. First by using artificial stimulus (some-thing external that influences an activity such as drugs, alcohol, over eating) we end up saturating our brains due to the overflow of chemicals. Drugs, alcohol or overeating effect our brains by acting to enhance or interfere with the activity of neuro- transmitters and receptors within the synapses of the brain.

Our brains are made up of neurons ( aka nerves) so whatever drugs or chemicals we put into our bodies will get to our brains but the effects are destructive not productive. This is why after so many years of drug addiction, alcoholism or over eating the effects on our brains and bodies start to take over. We've all seen people that have been addicts for a long time and the abuse they subject their bodies to, the end results are unpleasant to see. Whenever you think about something, sense something or do something, what is happening at the level of the brain is that various neurons are sending information to one another concerning what you are thinking, sensing or doing. It is at the level of this inter-neuron communication that most drugs have their effects. Either by over stimulating or preventing proper function. So the idea that we are making ourselves feel better by continuing with an addiction is in reality a harmful and false state of mind. And we cause more damage to our brains than we truly know or want to admit to.

Because our addictive thinking has clouded our reasoning and doesn't want us to stop being addicts. It's a demon we have to fight in order to gain control over our health and quality of life. When you really think about how addictions effect your brain and body to this degree. You can build on that knowledge of how to start stopping your addiction. We all know that addiction isn't good for us. But when we step back and see the true damage and we learn how our addictions really hurt us and how it disrupts our lives. We can then see that it's up to us as an individual to stop blaming everyone and everything else, take responsibility for your actions and to get the help
needed to stop being an addict. To allow ourselves to gain control and achieve a positive lifestyle, state of mind and a happier life. It is only when the addict can addmit they have this problem, they can't fix it alone and they reach out for help that they are truly on the path to recovery. We can then understand the true meaning of "getting high on life!"  Enjoy the day.

Thank you for reading, please pick up your FREE gift:   Discover Your Life Purpose
                    [Once on page, scroll down to free-download, there you go!]


  Copyright(c)2011-2012. How Addiction Effects Our Life of Purpose. Written by Sherrie Vitello. All Rights Reserved.

Reflections for the New Year.

Well it's the New Year, 2011.  We all have to get use to writing the correct year now....like every new year.  So looking back on 2010, how was it for you?  Do you think it was a good year?  Did you accomplish things you've planned to do?  Were you able to achieve all of last years new years resolutions?  Well if you're like me, you accomplished some but not all of them.  But don't fret...there's always this new year.

We have to let go of the negative things or events that took place last year. Don't let the past remind us of what we are not now.  If there are things that helped us to make changes for the better, then carry them over into the new year. If there are things that we can improve on even better, then let's try to do that this year.  Make up your mind to be a better person.  To improve on things that were good last year but always have room for improvement. Whatever you feel can help you to exist in a positive light about yourself, your life, your situation, just do it!

Each day a new beginning.

This next excerpt is taken from the wonderful book: Each Day A New Beginning, by Karen Casey.  Acceptance of our past, acceptance of the conditions presently in our lives that we cannot change, brings relief. It brings the peacefulness we so often, so frantically seek.  We can put the past behind us. Each day a new beginning.  And each day of abstinence offers us the chance to look ahead with hope.

A power greater than ourselves helped us to find this program. That power is ever with us. When we fear facing new situations, or when familiar situations turn sour, we can look to that power for help in saying what needs to be said and for doing what needs to be done. Our higher power is as close as our breath. Conscious awareness of it's presence strengthens us, moment by moment.

Enjoy your new year to come, enjoy your life, enjoy your day.
Written by Sherrie Vitello