The One New Year Resolution You Must Make

If you want to gain health, lose weight, build muscle, and/or improve stamina, then there is one new year's resolution you absolutely must make.

Write it down and say it out loud. "I will exercise for 30 to 60 minutes a day, 5 or 6 days a week."
Repeat this phrase to yourself often until it becomes a part of you.

Exercise really is the key to gaining maximum health. Exercise makes everything else work. Without exercise, nothing works.

The basics: exercise makes you breath more deeply, exercise gets you to drink more water, exercise makes you want to eat better food, exercise tones and strengthens muscles, exercise helps your body eliminate toxins, exercise helps blood to circulate more effectively and efficiently, exercise improves metabolism allowing you attain the correct body weight, exercise helps the immune system fight off disease.

Now that you know you are going to exercise every day, put it into a plan. Decide what you will do each day, and at what time. Be sure to vary the exercises from day to day, so that you work all the different muscle groups in full range of motion. If you do the same thing everyday, it can wear the body down. But doing different things helps to build the body up.

For instance, if you are into running, go short and fast one day, then long and slow the next. Integrate yoga into your routine one day and aerobic dance the next. There are many other things to choose from as well. Bicycling, swimming, dancing, ball playing, ultimate Frisbee, skiing, hiking, climbing, body weight exercises, etc.

One very important thing to remember is to take a rest day each week. The Lord gave us the Sabbath for a very good reason. It allows the necessary rest for the body (and spirit) to recover and grow stronger.

Happy New Year with your new life of exercise and health!

Exercise & Knee Pain

Everyone seems to agree that exercise is good for you, for the most part.
Some of the benefits to exercise include flexibility, muscle tone, confidence, weight control, immune enhancement, stronger heart and lungs, and stamina.

However, from time to time, I hear people claim that they don't exercise as much as they feel like they should, because they are afraid that it will make their joints go bad.

Osteoarthritis does affect a lot of people these days. But you might find a recent study published in the "Journal of Anatomy" to be interesting. They found, after looking at a number of studies that were done on exercise and joint problems, that there was no extra joint problems connected with regular vigorous exercise by people who have not had previous joint problems.

Exercise does not cause knee problems. It can be a contributing factor for those who are significantly over weight, or those who have already injured their joints.

You should also know that joint pain can be helped and joints rehabilitated through careful exercise and nutrition.

Learn more HERE.

Back to Basics : It Really Is This Simple.

People are always looking for that magic pill that is going to solve their problems.
Here is my last response to one of those questions like "Are there any good pills for...":

"Not that will do you any long term good, in my opinion.

But try this.
Cut out all sugar, caffeine, vegetables oils, and artificial sweeteners from your diet.
Eat whole grains and veggies as much as possible, along with fresh fruit.
Make sure that your are drinking lots of good clean water.
Start with a minimum of 12 cups of water daily. Put a pinch of real sea salt (with all the trace-minerals in it) in each cup of water.

And to help balance everything out and help heal the nerves, etc, take 3 or 4 tablespoons of coconut oil a day.

Also make sure you are getting regular exercise. At least 20 minutes at a time, at least 3 days a week.

Also, try to get to sleep 2 or 3 hours before midnight each night."

I think most people would be amazed at the improvement in health if they would just try these simple basic things.

LDN - Low Dose Naltrexone

There has been a lot of hubbub these days about Low-Dose-Naltrexone.

Here are the basics about it.

Naltrexone is a drug that has been used for several years to treat drug and alcohol addiction. It has some serious side effects. But they have discovered that at very low doses, (about 1/100th of a normal dose) the side effects are minimized and it helps to boost the immune system functions.

The theory is that it causes the body to release more endorphins, thus increasing immune function.

Here are my thoughts on it.

Now they are trying to sell you pills with so little active content in them you will be paying for fillers. The fillers are generally not good for you, just contributing to clogging up your system.

But the pills will be inexpensive compared to most drugs. Well, of course you do still have the expense of paying the doctor big bucks to tell you you need it.

Why buy a pill to get what you can get for free by living a healthy lifestyle?

Do you know what naturally causes your body to release more endorphins, to raise your immune function?

Check out this list:

1. exercise
2. smiling
3. laughing
4. eating spicy foods
5. eating dark chocolate

There is not a lot of time or expense involved with those, and they will most likely do you much more good than a pill.

One word of caution : don't get your dark chocolate from a sugar laden candy bar. I suggest raw cacao powder.

Well, that's what I think. Feel free to share your feelings.