September 27, 2016

Very few people have ever decided that they are going to just throw up their hands, decide that whatever happens happens, and just choose to stay sick and broken down and headed for an early grave.

But at the same time, the evidence is there that a big chunk of our culture has done just that.

We eat terribly. We’re addicted to distraction. We spend enough of our lives not moving around to the point that movement becomes difficult—if not impossible—later in life.

And, any commercial break during any TV show at any time of day shows how much encouragement we are getting from the corporations intent on selling us more and more of this lifestyle that’s killing us quicker than we could ever hope to manage on our own.

So, how do we fix it? How can you, today, start making better nutritional choices to feel better, live better, and simply be better?

I’m glad you asked. It’s not nearly as hard as you might think.

1. Look at What You’re Eating

The best way to get as many calories (and toxic chemicals, empty carbs, and stuff that isn’t even food to begin with) through your mouth and down into your body is to just shovel it mindlessly in.

It’s like the old adage: If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. In this case, if all you’re eating is food from a bag or a box, then everything looks like food.

Which, of course, it isn’t.

Instead, if you choose your food mindfully—and then eat it in the same way—you are quickly going to become aware of what, exactly, it is that you’re eating.

And with everything you eat, ask yourself this question: Is this helping my body or hurting it? People know a Double Whopper with bacon-flavored cheese isn’t good for you. But, what if you thought about it in this way: If I continued to eat this, every day, would it help me or hurt me?

The answer is obvious. And if you keep that question in mind when both choosing and consuming food, you’ll be a lot more enlightened about what exactly is going into your body.

Just shovel it in. Seriously. Whatever it is, just eat it.

2. Eat Plants.

It’s really that simple. Plants are healthy. They have almost all the nutrition inside them that you will ever need. Vitamins. Minerals. Fiber. A whole array of nutrients.

And the best way to start introducing more plants into your diet is to do just that. Introduce them.

Don’t take anything else out of your diet. Eat what you’re eating now. But add in two servings of vegetables to every meal. For those of us who aren’t keen on counting, think about it this way: For every meal, half your plate should be vegetables. You like Twinkies? Fine. Keep eating Twinkies. But also add in some broccoli, or carrots, or (if you want to get fancy) a rutabaga. Whatever.

Just fill up half your plate with whatever vegetable you choose.

After a while of not feeling so horrid from dawn until dusk, you’re body is going to adapt. It’s going to want those vegetables. Like a truck you’ve been filling up with maple syrup for the past decade that now has a taste of what it feels like to run on premium gasoline, you’re going to be surprised at how much you won’t miss the garbage.

Don’t eat them. Don’t think about them. Don’t even look at them. Pretend they are all poisonous. (Because let’s face it… they are). 

3. Quit Frying things.

Seriously. Just stop it. No more frying your food.

Oil just adds calories. You can still use your frying pans, but use them for steaming or sautéing. Or, if the temptation is too much, take all your frying pans and make decorative planters out of them. Or give your cat a little treat in the form of a much wider, slightly shallower, and be-handled new watering dish. Or fill them up with soil and start growing sprouts for all the salads you are going to look forward to eating in the future once your veins de-grease themselves and your body is more animal than off-shore oil well.

4. Understand Why You Eat What You Do

This is a big one.

A lot of why we eat isn’t from nutritional deficit, but instead because we feel a certain way.

Happy? Grab an Oreo.

Sad? Grab a Double-stuff Oreo.

The food we eat often has very little to do if we’re hungry or not. A lot of people (and I used to be this way, so don’t accuse me of getting preachy on you) just eat out of simple boredom.

An Oreo in our culture is legitimately just something to do.

Being mindful about WHY you eat, on the other hand, puts the nutritional factorial back into the equation. If you are upset and start reaching into the snack cabinet, take a breath, and ask yourself why your hand is currently wrapped around a Ho-Ho. Are you hungry, really? Or are you eating out of emotion?

Eating mindfully is one of those habits that can make a big difference very quickly. We have members that come into the program that have legitimately never once thought about WHY they eat what they eat. And once that lightbulb goes on above their heads, you can see the change almost visibly in their faces.

Once you get it, you get it. And then, combined with the other steps on this list, eating starts becoming something life-giving and rewarding, and not a mindless exercise in chewing.

What steps do you want to take to begin eating better? Let us know in the comment section below!

The post 4 Things You Can Do Nutritionally RIGHT NOW to Improve Your Life appeared first on Wellness Training Institute.

September 1, 2016

Life can be overwhelming. Jobs, families, the daily grind of just being alive.

It can be hard.

That’s why it takes an intentional plan to keep yourself centered and calm. So much of our lives are spent just reacting to things. In order to be healthy, we need to flip that equation and plan our days out to be proactive in the face of whatever stressors come our way. It sounds strange to speak about staying centered, calm, at peace as work—but that’s really exactly what it is.

So much of what we do lies in the overlap between our minds and the rest of the world. How we think and feel about the world determines, in a very real way, how we live our lives. Adding powerful habits into your daily flow can have life-changing effects on all aspects of your health.

Here are 7 ways to take action and optimize your daily routine for optimum health.

1. Gratitude Journal

Spending a few minutes each morning writing down three things you are grateful is no small thing. It’s easy, yes, but the impact is enormous. It’s so important, in fact, that this is one of the first habits we begin building in our members at The Wellness Training Institute. Before dietary stuff, before breathing and meditation, before anything.

The reason for this is because a Gratitude Journal does (at least) two key things.

One, it gets your mind set for the day. Even if you’ve gotten up on the wrong side of the bed that morning, focusing on tangible positives in your life will get you calibrated to spend the rest of the day looking for silver linings despite whatever storms might be looming.

Secondly, it’s an easy habit to build. And once you get this habit down, you’re able to build other healthy habits on top of it.

So, take five minutes each morning for the next two weeks and write down three things you are grateful for. It’s that simple.

(To learn more about why a Gratitude Journal is such an amazing tool, check out this post.)

Want more great information about the foundations of a healthy life? Download the first installment of our NEW 7-part eBook series The 7 Habits of Highly Healthful People for FREE right now, right HERE!

2. Lunchtime Meditation

You don’t have to be the Dalai Lama to meditate. No mountain tops required.

Here’s the deal: Meditation sounds like this big scary thing. It sounds hard. It sounds boring. It also might sound like something that someone like you wouldn’t ever do.

The reality, though, is that meditation is really just focused on two things:

One, meditation is about what we call “mindful breathing.” This is the simple action of concentrating on your breath as you inhale and exhale.

Breathing correctly can relieve — if not eliminate altogether — our depression and anxiety. Our minds are constantly under attack from our senses, our thoughts run crazy, and distraction is the norm. Breathing correctly puts all of this back in balance, grounds us, and puts our bodies at ease.

Two, meditation has a lot to do with cultivating awareness. This is simply the act of sitting with your thoughts, observing them, putting space between them. You separate out all the thoughts you have, as they come, focus on how they connect, how they make you feel. And with each one, once you’ve seen it for what it is, you release it and allow the next one to come.

Meditation, at its foundation, is just combing these two things—mindful breathing and cultivating awareness.

Simply set aside ten minutes in your day to find a quiet spot, close your eyes, breathe deeply, and relax with your thoughts.

3. Time Out Your Breath

Breathing is the foundation of a healthy life. Without air, you literally die. And learning how to breathe the right way is one of the most important steps you can take in your health journey.

The key is to get it positioned inside your day as something that eventually becomes a habit.

Here’s a great way to do that:

Set a timer for a few times a day. Whenever the timer goes off, take ten deep body breaths.

It’s that simple.

Commit to this technique, and you’ll be surprised how more relaxed you feel throughout the day. It makes a huge difference.

4. Schedule Your Calm

Another habit to begin to develop within your daily routine is to be very mindful of what points in your schedule allow you to kind of “get away” and do something relaxing.

Your drive home from work or the store, for example, could be a good time to shut out the distractions and be alone with your thoughts. (Provided, of course, that you can do this and still navigate, you know, traffic.)

Scheduling out a walk after dinner, or in the morning before you jump full bore into your day, could also be a good way to find some peace and work through your thoughts and feelings.

Whatever you choose to do, just do it. Schedule it in and commit to it.

5. Retrain Your Triggers

Remember that Pavlov guy and his dogs? By teaching his pooches to connect in their minds the sound of a bell with a bowl of kibble, he found he could get them to salivate on cue.

You can do the same thing with your stressors (minus the drool).

Here’s how it works:

Figure out one of your stressors. For this example, let’s say it’s a phone call from your boss.

Next, attach a sound to that stressor. In this case, it would be the sound your phone makes when he calls you.

Take that sound and use it as the timer we used in #3 above. Whenever you hear that sound, you do something relaxing (like take 10 deep body breaths, for example).

Do this for a few days. Within a week you’ll find that the very sound of the phone will trigger your body to begin to relax. So when your boss calls, instead of your sympathetic nervous system turning your head into a pressure cooker, your body will automatically relax, allowing you to deal with what you need to from a proactive position of calm.

6. Remind Yourself to be Happy

Negativity is a feedback loop. A couple things go wrong, your mood starts to go south, and before you know it, you’re caught in a self-perpetuating cycle of GRUMP.

Being mindful about taking a few moments out of each day to remind yourself to be HAPPY (because, after all, happiness really is a choice) can work wonders in keeping your spirits up and ready to face the next challenge.

Schedule it in. Stick to it. And soon it will become a habit.

7. Two Good/Two Bad/Let Go

How a particular morning starts off often has a lot to do with how you closed down your day the night before. If you go out binge drinking in the evening, for example, you’re almost guaranteeing a rough start to tomorrow. It works in a positive sense as well.

At the end of each day, write down two good things that happened that day.

Next, write down two things you wish you’d done better. Forgive yourself. Commit to yourself that you’ll try better tomorrow.

Finally, write down two things you’d like to accomplish the next day.

Then close the book on the day. Let go of it all. It’s all history now and tomorrow is a new day.

Shut it down for the night, get a great night’s sleep, and then get up again tomorrow, one day closer to the calm, centered, healthy life you’ve always longed for!

The post How to Optimize Your Daily Routine for Optimum Health appeared first on Wellness Training Institute.