Stress – its every where

Today’s Re-Powering Information – Stress – its every where. We have physical stress, mental, emotional, environmental, chemical and mechanical stressors all around us. We have moved so far away from what is natural regarding sleeping and eating and recovering that our bodies many times are under chronic stress. Since stress is everywhere, we have no choice but to manage it as best we can. You should have an arsenal of stress relievers. Boot camp is a great one. Everyone always compliments about how fast the hour goes (most of the time) and that they leave feeling wonderful! Another wonderful and easy to apply stress reliever is breathing exercises. I have taken classes in breath therapy and can tell you first hand that your breath can make you feel very heavy, very light and completely invigorated. Read on to see some stress relieving breathing exercises. You may feel silly doing them, but they work!





Dr. Mercola''s Comments


Dr. Mercola's Comments:



As many of you already know, I am passionate about finding simple, inexpensive resources that can have profound impact on your health. And breathing is one strategy that can make a tremendous difference in how you feel and age, yet it receives little attention. After all, you breathe in and out without conscious thought. As soon as you stop, you die. Surely everyone’s got this one all figured out already?

Not really. In fact, improper breathing is more the norm than the exception these days.

So implementing a breathing technique may actually be one of the most beneficial things you can do to elevate your physical health and soothe your mind.

Actually, one of my first journeys into natural health was in the early 90’s, when I attended several week-long seminars in Southern California to learn different breathing practices. They were all very useful, but a bit complicated to perform without proper instructions and practice.

There are many different breathing practices that you can try, but here I’m going to share with you one that is both powerful and very easy to perform.

I like to do it before each meal as that ensures that I will do it at least three times a day. I also like to combine it with gratitude for my meal, so for the two minutes it actually takes to do the technique, I seek to focus on gratitude for not only the food, but all the blessings in my life.

I recently learned this one when I attended a presentation by Dr. Weil at Expo West in California.

In the presentation summary he outlined some of the best resources he’s learned over his clinical career for improving health, and topping the list, interestingly, was a breathing exercise called the 4-7-8, or Relaxing Breath Exercise.

On his site, he states:

"Practicing regular, mindful breathing can be calming and energizing and can even help with stress-related health problems ranging from panic attacks to digestive disorders."

The 4-7-8 Breathing Exercise

The key to this exercise is to remember the numbers 4, 7 and 8. It’s not important to focus on how much time you spend in each phase of the breathing activity, but rather that you get the ratio correct.

Here’s how it’s done:

1. Sit up straight
2. Place the tip of your tongue up against the back of your front teeth. Keep it there through the entire breathing process
3. Breathe in silently through your nose to the count of four
4. Hold your breath to the count of seven
5. Exhale through your mouth to the count of eight, making an audible “woosh” sound
6. That completes one full breath. Repeat the cycle another three times, for a total of four breaths

You can do this exercise as frequently as you want throughout the day, but it’s recommended you don’t do more than four full breaths during the first month or so of practice. Later you may work your way up to eight full breath cycles at a time.

The benefits of this simple practice are enormous and work as a natural tranquilizer for your nervous system.

Personally, I think one of its greatest values may be gained when you combine it with your meals. Most of us eat three meals a day, so it makes remembering to do it easier. Also, I believe that combining it with the attitude of gratitude for the healthy meal you just ate, or are about to eat, can have a powerful, beneficial influence on your health.

The Health Benefits of Breathing Exercises

Self-applied health enhancement methods like the 4-7-8 breathing technique are particularly remarkable because of the broad array of real health benefits that are triggered.

Learning to breathe mindfully can modify and accelerate your body's inherent self-regulating physiological and bioenergetic mechanisms.

These changes are in large part due to the fact that you’re oxygenating your body properly as well as correcting your internal and energetic balance, and it has a direct impact your nervous system.

This in turn affects your entire body and its countless cellular functions, including all of your subtle energy systems.

The web site breathing.com offers a list of clinical studies into the health benefits of optimal breathing. One such study, which spanned a 30-year period, concluded that the most significant factor in your health and longevity is how well you breathe.

It focused on the long-term predictive power of forced exhalation volume as the primary marker for life span. According to the researchers,

"This pulmonary function measurement appears to be an indicator of general health and vigor and literally a measure of living capacity."

It’s also important to realize that much of hypertension is controlled by the way you breathe, so breathing exercises are an excellent adjunct to your other healthy lifestyle strategies to control high blood pressure.

Breathing exercises such as the one I showed you above have a positive impact on your:

* Respiratory system, which can reduce mental and physical fatigue, as well as relieve symptoms of asthma and bronchitis
* Circulatory system; improving blood circulation and cell oxygenation throughout your body
* Nervous system
* Digestive system, by acting as a pump to massage internal organs
* Endocrine system. The action of your diaphragm helps push lymph throughout your body, which helps eliminate toxic waste and strengthen your immune system
* Urinary system, by helping to eliminate fluids and massaging your kidneys
* Skin. Toxic CO2 waste is eliminated more directly through your breath, and your skin can also be positively affected by improved blood flow and oxygenation

Breathing Your Way to Optimal Health

Another obvious use for the 4-7-8 breathing technique is to use it whenever you feel stressed or anxious. It’s a powerful way to help relax your system without drugs.

Best of all, it doesn’t cost you anything but a couple of minutes of your time! And, if you commit to it, I believe you’ll be absolutely shocked, and pleasantly surprised, by how quickly and easily it can center and relax you and allow you to achieve high levels of health.

For even more breathing practices, I recommend you read the article Breathing Exercises and Self Healing, written by Roger Jahnke, O.M.D., or see Dr. Weil’s website for additional exercises.

Do something special for yourself today!

Underestimating Your Calories?

Today’s Re-Powering Information – I’ve said this before, but it’s worth reiterating. Most people (including me) underestimate how much poor food they eat and they overestimate how much fruits and vegetables they consume. They also overestimate how much the exercise. Many overweight people only remember eating one half of what they ate. Now there’s proof in these studies. It’s interesting to see the types of food we underestimate as well as some solutions to get a handle on what’s passing our lips.
What is the "Eye-Mouth Gap"?

September 30, 2008
Can't Figure out why you're gaining weight even though you're watching what you eat and have been exercising consistently for a while? Two recent studies shed some light.
According to the Berkeley Wellness Letter, the "eye-mouth gap", a term used to describe the common practice of underestimating the amount of food one eats, is prevalent among those trying to lose weight.
The idea is if you ask someone what they ate yesterday the odds are their caloric estimate will be off by a considerable amount. Studies show that up to 80% of the population underestimates their food intake. This includes lean and athletic people, too.
Researchers have found that when queried, many obese people remember eating only about half as much food as they actually consumed. A recent survey found that most adults underestimate their daily food consumption by about 800 calories. Considering that the standard adult diet is in the neighborhood of 2000 calories, these flawed estimates can add up to quite a few extra pounds and inches each year.
What's more, while people underestimate the amount of sugar, refined foods, and unhealthy fats they consume, people also tend to overestimate their daily intake of fruit, veggies, whole grains and low-fat dairy products. So we're consuming more calories than we realize, we're eating more junk food than we realize, and we're eating less healthy food than we realize.

There are a few possible reasons why a person might fail to grasp what (or how much) they are putting into their bodies. Explains the Wellness Letter:
Misreporting is seldom a deliberate deception, researchers believe. More likely, it's unconsciously done, perhaps in response to social or familial pressure, combined with wishful thinking. In addition, people don't know how much food they put on their plates. If you're trying to lose weight or improve your diet, don't trust your eyes.

In addition to underestimating how much we're eating, another recent study shows that Americans are overestimating the number of calories they burn during the day (exercising or performing everyday activity)! The overweight population is overestimating their calories burned per day by approximately 900 and normal weight people by 600. These two recent studies certainly explain our expanding waistlines. Click here to watch the Liz Bonis segment on "Eye-Mouth Gap"

What can you do?
1. Be consistent in your workouts and make them progressive. Simply put, keep working diligently and change your routine frequently. We take care of this for you in camp.
2. Track your calories. Doctors, fitness professionals and dietitians suggest health-conscious consumers track their meals to have a more accurate picture of what (and how much) they're actually eating. Use some method (the easier, the better) to keep count of how many calories you're consuming. If you want to lose weight, allow for a small caloric deficit on most days of the week - you should expend more energy than you take in by approximately 400 - 800 on caloric deficit days.
A nutrition tool I've found to help track both the quantity and quality of calories is Meal Plans 101, created by dietitian Dr. Chris Mohr, PhD. Regardless of the method, people who keep track of what they are eating are far more successful in their fitness and body fat reduction efforts.
You can see more info here - http://www.argylebootcamp.com/mealplanning.html. This will let you know precisely how much fat, fiber, protein, calories and more, that you are consuming

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Enjoy today’s journey,

Kelli
www.KelliCalabrese.com

Food Diary for Weight Loss

Today’s RePowering Information – I have always been a big beliver in keeping a diary for weight loss success (as well as success in general). There is something so powerful to writing things down such as goals and food intake. Most times when you see a weight loss success story, it included recording food intake in one form or another. Knowing you are going to write it down and a coach is going to check it makes you think about making healthier choices. But don’t just take my work for it. Read the new story below.

Dear (Food) DiaryBy SANJAY GUPTA, M.D. Illustration by Corliss Elizabeth Williams for TIME
Article ToolsPrintEmailSphereAddThis RSSYahoo! Buzz Two nights ago, I had a handful of M&M's. In fact, I can tell you I ate seven of the peanut kind, which is my favorite. Under normal circumstances, I would've simply grabbed a bunch, mindlessly eaten them while talking to a colleague and forgotten them entirely.

Instead, I know the specific number I ate because I am keeping a food diary. I write down everything I consume, with great detail. I had a single packet of ketchup with my eggs the other morning and 4 oz. (113 g) of green-tea-flavored frozen yogurt with my daughter two days before that. I started the diary because I wanted to test the striking new results of a paper published in the August issue of American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Scientists at several clinical-research centers in the U.S. found that dieters who kept a food diary lost twice as much weight as those who didn't.

The study tracked nearly 1,700 overweight or obese adults across the country who were at least 25 years old. Men and women were included, and 44% of the group was African American. All participants were encouraged to use such weight-loss maintenance strategies as calorie restriction, weekly group sessions and moderately intensive exercise as well as to keep a food journal. The senior investigator, Victor Stevens of Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland, Ore., told me that "hands down, the most successful weight-loss method was keeping a record of what you eat." In the six-month study, participants who kept a food journal six or seven days a week lost an average of 18 lb. (8 kg), compared with an average of 9 lb. (4 kg) lost by non-diary keepers.

Of course, as you might guess, "it's not just writing it down that counts," Stevens says. It is also about using that record to identify eating habits that need to be modified. While most people think they know what they eat, they really have only a general idea and tend to have selective memory, especially when it comes to the foods that aren't so good for us. With a detailed food diary, you can see where those extra calories are coming from.

As soon as I started writing down all the foods I was eating, I wondered exactly how many calories I was consuming. I found a terrific site called the Daily Plate at livestrong.com. It not only lets you accurately count calories but also helps you find people with eating habits similar to your own. A virtual cheerleading squad could help motivate you to stay away from that bag of M&M's, or whatever food weaknesses you may have.

While keeping a food diary works, it's best to do so in conjunction with regular exercise. Losing just 10 lb. (4.5 kg) can help control high blood pressure and reduce your risk of diabetes, heart disease and stroke. Drop a few pounds, and you might get an immediate thank-you from your knees and other joints. It is also likely that your sleep will improve, as will your energy levels.

There is another part of the food-diary experiment that really seems to be working for me. In addition to being honest and diligent about the diary, I am showing everything in my diet diary—down to the last morsel—to my wife. Stevens says it's all about accountability. You may have been thinking about eating that extra cookie, he says, "but you didn't want it to show up on the diary at the end of the day." Tonight, we are eating 6 oz. (170 g) of grilled tilapia with steamed broccoli and a handful of steamed brown rice. I originally thought we were going to have steak tonight, but my wife got hold of my food diary. And, yes, she saw those M&M's.

— With reporting by Danielle N. Dellorto