Monday, March 22, 2010

Heal youself in 15 days: A Summary

1.Definition of Healthy Living

Health isn't defined by a range of numbers. It doesn't mean merely shrinking the physical size of a tumor while the patient continues to waste away. Health isn't measured solely by the number of days someone is kept alive on life support equipment...

Health means exactly what you intuitively thought it meant before you were subjected to so much influence and misinformation by drug company advertisements, conventional doctors and friends or family members -- health means quality of life.

And what is quality of life? Being able to sleep at night, walk without pain, eat and enjoy food, have a working memory, and achieve things in your life that mean something to you. Health means time with family, a walk in the woods, a positive mental outlook and an ability to handle stress without flipping out. Health means treating your body with respect and experiencing the joy of feeling it work well in return. Health means vibrant energy, daily optimism and even good sexual energy, too (and much more).

The real answers to health must come from somewhere else... somewhere that's more aligned with the real definition of health that you intuitively know to be more meaningful.

2. your body is a powerful self-healing organism

Healing yourself is automatic, in other words. You don't have to direct blood to the wound, direct the cells to start replicating, direct the molecular waste products to be carried away and decide when cell replication should be stopped. All this happens without your involvement -- even without your awareness! Much of it happens while you sleep, in fact. While your conscious mind is dreaming, your innate body wisdom is working the biochemistry and energetic transformations necessary to repair your tissues.

You can't stop this process even if you wanted to. You could try to focus all your mental power on your skin not healing, and yet your skin would heal itself anyway. That's because your body is a powerful self-healing organism. It heals itself automatically, innately, without your conscious awareness or involvement. Your ability to heal yourself is so powerful that you can't stop yourself from healing!

So keep in mind that your body is always trying to heal itself. "Symptoms" of disease are often just cries for help from your own biology. The wise patient listens to those cries for help, attempts to understand what they mean, and addresses them through self-care. The unwise patient attempts to silence symptoms through chemical intervention: Pain killers, chemical pharmaceuticals, surgery and other interventions. Western doctors are not trained in proper symptom interpretation and rebalancing. They are only trained in symptom "management" which means reducing symptoms through artificial intervention.

Healthy people aren't healthy just because they eat superfoods and drink living juices all day long. They are healthy because they avoid poisoning their bodies with pharmaceuticals, artificial sweeteners, MSG and other processed food ingredients. They avoid the chemicals in cosmetics, personal care products, household cleaning products and lawn care products. They avoid consuming meat from animals who have been pumped full of hormones and antibiotics. They keep their bodies as free from pollution as possible, and as a result, their innate healing powers are always working for them!

3. reduce your consumption of dietary sugars.

Digestion is a complex process. It requires biochemical and physical processes to break down ingested substances into their nutritional components. This process is significantly aided by digestive enzymes which exist naturally in living foods (fresh, raw vegetable and fruit juices, for example).

Heating foods (cooking them) destroys all digestive enzymes. This is one reason why cooked foods steal life away from people while raw, living foods impart life. Living foods usually come with their own digestive enzymes, aiding your digestive processes in breaking down and absorbing nutrients.

Dead foods -- which include anything pasteurized -- stress your liver, pancreas and gallbladder by requiring these organs to produce extra digestive enzymes that are missing from the foods themselves. Because many people suffer from poor digestive organ function, they have difficulties absorbing the nutrients they've swallowed.

By the way, if you want healthy intestinal flora, it's also important to reduce your consumption of dietary sugars. When you consume more sugars, you alter the bacterial population in your gut, causing a shift toward bacteria that feed on sugars. As you alter your diet to exclude refined sugars, the population of bacteria in your gut follows suit, shifting towards a non-sugar bacterial population.

4. Making healthy blood

It stands to reason, therefore, that altering your health outcome depends largely upon altering the composition of your blood. If you want to make someone really healthy for a short time, for example, you can give them blood from a healthy person. Research has already documented that when you take blood from people whose bodies prevent cancer and then inject that blood into people who are suffering from cancer, the anti-cancer benefits of the blood are immediately reflected in the cancer patient (through tumor shrinkage, for example). There is such a thing as anti-cancer blood. And if you eat an anti-cancer diet, you're making anti-cancer blood every single day.

Your blood is largely comprised of the things you ate, drank and absorbed over the last several months. You must consume healthy fats in order to create healthy red blood cells. This means consuming healthful omega-3 fatty acids. From the world of plants, healthful fats come from coconuts, avocados, flaxseed, Chia seeds and other similar sources. From the animal world, the best source for omega-3 fatty acids is, in my opinion, the green-lipped mussels oils in Moxxor, which come from a pristine marine environment.

Consuming damaging fats will harm the health of your blood. Damaging fats include trans-fatty acids and fried fats (such as those used in fried foods). Making healthy blood also requires the right minerals. Red blood cells themselves need iron, but you'll want all the trace minerals, too, so they can be delivered by your blood to your cells. When you lack sufficient quantities of minerals like calcium, magnesium, zinc and selenium, biological functions start to go awry.

Healthy blood also needs plenty of water, of course. Water is the primary fluid of your blood plasma -- it's a solvent that can dissolve and transport all sorts of crucial building blocks for health including water-soluble vitamins like Vitamin C. Without adequate water, your blood turns to sludge blood -- sticky, gooey blood that your heart can't easily pump through your circulatory system. The forceful pumping required to push this blood through your system is frequently diagnosed as high blood pressure.

Human blood also needs many other elements, all of which can be found in a plant-based diet (including the proteins needed for blood).

5. Eat More Raw living foods

Raw living foods offer one of the greatest secrets to disease reversal and lasting health, and nothing beats fresh living foods right out of the garden. So if you can grow any of your own ingredients for this when Spring comes around, definitely make an effort to do so. Otherwise, buy them at a store or farmer's market.

these foods are alive with nutrients and energies. They are live foods, not dead processed foods, and they provide both the nutrients and the energies of life! It's a simple concept, really: If you want to stay alive, eat more living foods. If you want to be dead, eat more dead foods.

The point of today's living foods juice is to both introduce you to the joy of juicing (if you don't already know about it), and to prepare your digestive tract for tomorrow's action item.

How much juice should you drink? Just drink whatever amount you feel comfortable with. I recommend an 8 oz. glass of this juice at minimum, but if you only feel like drinking half that much, that's fine, too. Some people will drink as much as 64 ounces of fresh juice in a day! (Juice Feasting)

You can drink this juice between meals, or during a meal, or any time you want. Just drink it quickly after making it, because fresh juice oxidizes in mere minutes. The nutritional quality of the fresh juice you make literally starts to degrade with each passing second. Ideally, start to consume it within two minutes of juicing it, and finish it in no more than five.

You may feel some "detox" side effects from this juice, especially if you currently pursue a relatively unhealthful diet. But they should be mild. After all, this is just simple juice from simple foods. These aren't drugs or extracts. They are the foods your body was meant to consume.

Fresh living juice is such a powerhouse of nutrition and energy that even when you eat virtually nothing for several days in a row, the juice you had before the fast keeps you alive, healthy and energetic.

But for those who are using juice therapeutically to treat disease under the care of a naturopathic physician, for example, they will probably want no fiber at all. That's because the fiber makes it more difficult for your body to absorb the juice. So for people who are fasting, or treating cancer, or detoxing or whatever, it's often recommended that they discard all the fiber and go for the pure juice.

6.Fasting

Refrain from eating anything (or drinking any beverages other than water) for 24 hours. Your body has plenty of calories stored to carry you through those 24 hours, and the pause from digestion will give your body a chance to focus its healing energies on other parts of your body.

Fasting has been used from Biblical times through the modern world to help purify and heal the body. It can help detox your liver, kidneys and digestive tract. It also encourages you to rethink your eating habits. When you fast for just 24 hours, and you're really committed to it, you'll be shocked to discover how many times you habitually reach for food.

People habitually reach for food in all sorts of circumstances that have nothing to do with actual hunger:

Typically, the worse your diet, the more detox side effects you may experience when fasting.

If you want to make your fasting more tolerable and more cleansing, you also have the option of drinking an 8-oz. glass of fresh vegetable juice in the middle of your fast. I did this during my fast, and it not only gave me more energy to make it through the fast;

So if your fast fails, don't fret. Simply take the next 30 days to improve your eating habits, making them healthier and supported with more fresh food rather than processed food. Work to get safely off all prescription drugs (with the help of your naturopathic physician, of course). Drink more superfoods and fresh juices. Then 30 days later, try the 24-hour fast again and see if you can make it through the entire thing.

If you ever feel extremely weak, ill or you think you might pass out, that's a sign to stop the fast and get some calories. This isn't some sort of "no pain no gain" situation. Fasting should be tolerable and not dangerous. Again, the healthier your diet to start with, the easier your fast will typically be.

Fasting helps free your mind from the enslavement of thinking you have to eat every few hours. It gives you new options, new freedoms and new self discipline. It's about much more than simply not eating food for 24 hours; it's also about self observation and spiritual mindfulness. Why do you think nearly all the great spiritual figures throughout world history fasted as part of their spiritual practice? They did that because too much food messes with your head while fasting clears your head.

Fasting gives you the opportunity to clear the food-induced cobwebs and see things with improved clarity. Now, just as a disclaimer here, please know that you're not going to see God after just a 24-hour fast. When spiritual leaders fast, they often fast for weeks at a time. Some go as far as 40 days. Some "breatharians" claim not to eat food at all, ever! But those are more advanced topics for another day.

7. Don’t Follow The Crowd

Crowds as a whole aren't very intelligent -- even when individual members of the crowd might be highly intelligent on their own! And if you follow the mainstream consumer crowd without thinking for yourself, you can only expect the same outcome the crowd is experiencing: Degenerative disease, pharmaceutical dependency and medical bankruptcy.
That's why achieving lasting health means distancing yourself from the mainstream crowd and in many cases doing the opposite of what they do. When the mainstream crowd pops pills for depression, cholesterol and high blood pressure, do the opposite and take nutritional supplements that nourish the body instead of poisoning it. Basically, watch what the mainstream consumers do and make a conscious effort to do the opposite (in most cases, anyway).

Crowds usually aren't very smart. But YOU are! You have the ability to think for yourself, to change your mind at any time, to improve your decisions, to upgrade or downgrade your lifestyle, etc. Exercise these gifts where appropriate, and don't be afraid to try out new eating habits, new exercise schedules and new approaches to self care. Find out what works best for you, regardless of whether a "crowd" exists that practices the same thing.

Don't be a mindless health nut, in other words. Be mindfully health conscious and go with what works best for you rather than what's popular or cool. So be smart. Be an individual. And be brave enough to reject the crowd and do something different that's probably a whole lot safer and healthier.

Getting sunlight on your skin to generate vitamin D is rejecting the crowd. And yet it's the very best way to prevent cancer for FREE!

8.Stop Making Disease

the first question you might ask is, "How do I stop making disease?"

To answer that question, though, you need to understand how disease is created in the first place. All disease begins with an imbalance in the mind or the body (it can originate in either place and then spread to the other).

Disease can be set off by a nutritional deficiency (not enough vitamin D, for example), or a dietary excess (too much homogenized milk). It can be caused by an emotional state such as anger or stress that then spreads to the tissues and begins to create dis-ease in the physical body.

Most disease that's being "manufactured" in the bodies of people today is created through controllable factors: What people eat, what chemicals they expose themselves too, how much exercise they get (or not), their state of mind, what supplements they take (or don't) and so on.

Disease doesn't appear immediately, of course. It takes many years for the daily poisoning of the body to be diagnosed as disease. But make no mistake about the origins of that disease: The body manufactured the disease over many years!

So when doctors tell patients "There's nothing you could have done to prevent this" they are actually lying to their patients. Of course there's something you can do! You can stop making disease before it gets out of control.

Conventional doctors usually don't like to acknowledge this because it would give patients the idea that they have control over their own health. Most conventional doctors would rather believe the Big Lie that says doctors control your health, or that disease strikes randomly, without cause. And therefore you have no control over your own health and are dependent on western medicine to take responsibility for your health.

It's a belief system specifically designed to entrap you in a system of medical dependency (enslavement). Fortunately, you can free yourself from medical enslavement...

Each day, depending on what you eat, drink, do or put on your body, you are either moving towards disease or away from disease. The way to stop making disease, then, is to halt any actions that move you toward disease and, instead, pursue actions they move you away from disease (and toward improved health).

Once you fill your body with living, healing juices, sunlight and regular exercise, you will shut off all kinds of chemical "disease-making" processes in your physiology. And you'll activate healing processes that move you towards lifelong health. This is how you start making health instead of disease.

The longer you pursue a healthful lifestyle based on superfoods, nutritional supplements, healthy eating and the avoidance of pharmaceuticals, vaccines, mainstream personal care products and other poisons, the faster your healing will accelerate! Beyond the mere halting of manufacturing disease, once your body achieves a certain level of vitality, it will begin to automatically reverse disease. Cancer tumors in your body, in other words, will literally vanish over time. Heart disease can be cured. Diabetes may disappear. Cognitive function will be restored. These are just a few of the many benefits you may experience when self-healing is in full swing.

By the way, following the recipe for health may take more self discipline and maturity than following the recipe for disease, but it's far more rewarding. For one thing, you get to live longer. Better yet, you get to live happier and healthier during all those years. And isn't that essentially why we're all interested in the health in the first place?

9.Spend More Time Outdoor with Nature

But few people in the field of conventional medicine embrace the idea that nature itself a healer, so the message of spending time in nature to improve your health doesn't get much attention.

As you well know, sunlight also causes your skin to generate vitamin D -- perhaps the most miraculous nutrient yet discovered in the modern world. Vitamin D prevents cancer, heart disease and diabetes. It boosts bone density and immune function, and it prevents infectious disease far better than vaccines could ever hope to. To get more vitamin D, simply spend more time in nature!

The natural sounds of nature are, in and of themselves, healing therapy. Simply surrounding yourself with the sounds of real nature causes a scientifically-provable reduction in stress levels and blood pressure.

The most powerful healing sounds in nature seem to be those from water: Waterfalls, water running down a creek or stream, rain and thunderstorms, etc. You can mimic these sounds with "sound conditioning" devices that broadcast sound loops of natural sounds. They're very effective machines, but still nothing equals the healing potential of real sounds experienced directly in the real world.

The colors of nature are, scientifically speaking, different wavelengths of light striking your retina and being interpreted as colors by your brain.These different wavelengths are, in essence, a form of energy medicine. Light is energy, and what your body needs to be healthy is exposure to a diverse assortment of those energy wavelengths. That's why looking at all the various colors of flowers, plants and animals is, by itself, a healing experience. It also stimulates the brain to become more active and more intelligent.

Spending more time in nature allows your brain to explore a more diverse natural reality, causing it to function at a higher cognitive level. Dull people, in contrast, tend to spend a lot of time indoors where the scenery never changes.Being in nature makes physical movement almost mandatory. When you're in nature, you're often walking, running, biking or swimming. And yet because the scenery is so beautiful, it doesn't feel like exercise! It simply feels like fun!

The health benefits of all this movement are tremendous: A boost in circulation, increased bone density and muscle strength, increased flexibility, lymph fluid circulation and much more. And yet being in nature allows you to experience all these benefits without it feeling like hard work.

Exposure to microbes in the real world is hugely important for the healthy balance and functioning of your immune system, and the best place to have exposure to these microbes is out in nature!

Spending time in nature rejuvenates your system, and when city life leaves you feeling depleted, nature can bring your energy back.

In any case, whether you have kids or not, spending more time in nature will vastly improve your health! So make it a point to get outside, soak up some sunshine, breathe in the fresh air and get all the nature you can! You'll be healthier, happier, more fit and even more intelligent for doing so!
Part of the magic of the bio-energy in nature depends on coming into physical contact with nature. Walk barefoot. Hug a tree. Touch a flower. Lie down on the grass. Touch nature as your body intended and you'll create a closed circuit with the planet itself. Some people say that being electrically "grounded" with the earth (through barefoot walking) makes an important difference in reducing the electric "noise" that interferes with your health.

10.Chemical Free Living

Gather up every "chemical" product and throw them all out. (You're poisoning the environment by doing so, of course, but you're going to make up for that by never buying these products again...)

This includes all your conventional cosmetics, soaps, shampoos, fragrance products, cleaning products, laundry products, bug sprays, air "fresheners" and the whole lot. Gather them all up and throw them out. More importantly make a commitment to never buy these products again. That's the only way to enjoy a long-term benefit for your health, of course.

Once this is done, begin to detox your body from these synthetic chemicals using a variety of detox products: Zeolites, chlorella supplements, cilantro, spirulina, etc. Drink a lot of water. Take liver detox herbs to support healthy liver function during all this.

Within just a few days, your chemical burden will start to fall as your body eliminates the chemicals that have been routinely poisoning it. After six months, your chemical load can drop as much as 90 percent, greatly reducing the chemical stress on your liver and kidneys while sharply reducing your risk of cancer and other neurological disorders.

Over time, your health will improve as your exposure to synthetic chemicals plummets. This action, combined with all the other steps in this 15-day self healing series, will vastly improve your health while slowing or even halting the development of many different degenerative diseases such as cancer, liver disease or Alzheimer's.

11.Eat More Healthy Food

The whole point of this "heal yourself by eating MORE" approach is to chill out and get away from the "avoid everything" trap that becomes a psychological obstacle for a lot of people who are trying to improve their health. The demands to avoid everything can seem intimidating and repetitive: Avoid cheese, avoid sugar, avoid diet sodas, avoid processed meat, avoid MSG, etc. For many people, the list of things to avoid becomes so large and confusing that they just give up trying to be healthier.

So I've advocated a totally different approach that's focused on eating more of the right kinds of things and worrying less about all the other stuff. You might call it a more balanced, relaxed approach to healthful living for a more mainstream audience.

For example, one of the action strategies here is to aim to eat three whole fruits per day; one before each meal. So each day, I want you to consume a total of three whole fruits such as apples, pears, peaches, mangos, large plums, etc. But here's the key in all this: You must eat one whole fruit BEFORE each meal.

While you're following this strategy, I don't want you to worry about what to avoid. Eat whatever it is you normally eat, but add three whole fruits per day. (Not dried fruits. They must be fresh, whole fruits of a significant size.)

The reason this strategy works so well to improve your health is because by eating three whole fruits each day -- one before each major meal -- you will tend to crowd out the less healthful foods automatically, without any real effort and without worrying so much avoid what to avoid.

#1) The fruit contains nutrients that will help protect you from the damaging ingredients of cooked foods, processed foods or chemical food ingredients. (Because fruits contain natural medicines.)

#2) The whole fresh fruit will take up more physical space in your stomach, making you feel full faster and causing you to stop eating the other stuff sooner. You may find yourself suddenly unable to finish your Big Mac and fries, for example. You may not even know why but then it hits you: Oh yeah, I ate the fresh fruit before this meal!

Naturally, I hope you choose organic fruit for this, but even if you don't, eating conventionally-grown fresh fruit is better than nothing!

Here's another element in this strategy: I want you to eat a handful of superfood supplements each day, preferably before noon.

By superfood supplements, I mean microalgae like chlorella, spirulina or food-based vitamins like those from Pure Synergy (this could be in the form of powder, tablets or capsules). So at some point each morning -- it could be after breakfast or before lunch -- I want you to swallow an entire handful of these superfood supplements (with water, of course). You may want to do this with food for the first few weeks, to get your body used to these nutrients arriving all at once.

So far, then, we've talked about eating MORE food to improve your health:

• Eat three fresh raw fruits each day (one before each major meal)
• Eat a handful of superfood supplements each day
• Eat more full-spectrum salt (ideally as a replacement for processed "refined" salt)
• Drink a fresh superfood smoothie each day

12.Gratitude and Thankfulness

In just 60 seconds per day, if practiced daily, you will create an attitude of gratitude which will brighten your mood and uplift your day-to-day experience of life because it allows you to refocus your attention on those things you appreciate rather than those things you might despise.

And this, as I hinted at earlier, will result in a very real physiological and biochemical healing effect within your own body.

At the same time, to love something else -- or to express thankfulness towards it -- causes a reflection of that positive energy to be felt inside yourself, too. So the mere act of expressing gratitude is a form of self-healing.

Anger is a very destructive emotion because it causes stress, adrenal depletion and tension throughout the body. But you can learn to replace anger (or other negative emotions) with gratitude, and anger cannot coexist with gratitude.

In this way, gratitude can begin to nudge out the other negative emotions you might be experiencing. This doesn't mean you have to run around blindly thankful for everything without discerning times when criticism or anger might be called for, but the more you can find the gratitude in everyday things, the more you'll activate and support your body's inner healing processes.

So start today and rediscover those things you feel gratitude towards. Express that gratitude either silently or verbally and enjoy the experience of that positive energy being reflected back at you.

50 Tips to Increase Stamina

50 Tips to Increase Stamina

Can there really be 50 ways to increase performance in your favorite sport? Twenty-five push-ups a day do not an athelete make, but combine those exercises you do for strength and endurance with a nutritious diet, aerobic conditioning, weight training, and a healthy lifestyle, and you can be at the top of your form--whatever your sport. Consider the suggestions below; you may be in for a few surprises.

1. Every athlete should have a baseline medical screen from which to work. Overtraining, illness, and stress can all affect performance. Fatigue sets in, and injuries may result. If you are over 40 and beginning an exercise program, make sure you get that physical.

2. Frequency, intensity, and time/duration are the components of a safe, effective exercise program. Mess up any of these, and you risk injury. Experts agree on a few basics: three or more workouts a week, at a heart rate not exceeding 60 to 80 percent of your maximum heart rate, for 20 minutes or longer. Even moderate exercise works to increase stamina.

3. Don't accelerate your training level too rapidly. You need time to build confidence and accustom your muscles to any new activity. A beginner might benefit initially from working with a trainer to find the optimum level of activity. If you run, follow the 10 percent rule: do not increase mileage by more than 10 percent per week.

4. Know your limitations. If you are overweight and out of shape, you will need to lose weight as you shape up. Over age 40? Don't try to run the marathon in two hours. Asthmatic? Don't try to run through an attack. Whatever your health problem, work with it, not against it. Stay in touch with your doctor and/or trainer.

5. If you select activities you enjoy, you will increase your chances of sticking with them long enough to get in shape and feel good. Don't take up running if you hate it; there are other ways to get in shape.

6. For the long haul, select at least one activity you can do anywhere with a minimum of fuss. Walking is great, possible in most climates, easy on the body, adaptable, and a great way to burn off extra calories you might take in at dinner, on vacation, or when on a business trip.

7. Many people benefit by joining an organization built around their sport or reading relevant material. Maintaining this contact helps the athlete take themselves and their sport seriously. Not only does this make the sport more fun, but it helps prevent staleness and encourages maximum effort.

8. Some athletes find that keeping a performance log or other type of progress chart aids them in sticking to their training regimen. Record each workout, and keep track in case you get injured. Looking back over your training and competition log may show you where you went off track.

9. Whatever sport you choose, make sure you don't skimp on equipment. The right running shoe can make the difference between success and failure. Choose a cross-country ski machine that slides evenly, or you may end up with muscle pulls. Don't take up bicycle racing and forget the helmet!

10. Successful athletes plan long-term. Think safety, as in adequate fluid intake, correct clothing for your sport and climate. Acclimate yourself gradually to extreme heat. During your first hot-weather workout, cut intensity by 65 to 75 percent; over the next several days slowly build back to your previous level. Wear reflective gear if you are outdoors after dark.

11. When working out, use the principles of overload, specificity, and progression. Overload is necessary to improve stamina, but don't overdo. Irritability and depression are often the first signs of fatigue. Specificity means you train for what you want to achieve. Progression means that you keep on improving.

12. Work from a prevention perspective. If you have an injury that does not improve, see a specialist promptly. Untreated injuries may otherwise lay you up for long periods, during which stamina and endurance slide.

13. Remember the cardinal rules for every sport: warm up, stretch, and cool down. This is especially important if you are forced to be a weekend athlete. Don't wait until the morning of your mountain climb to begin calf-stretching exercises, or you may find all your enthusiasm for the sport going up in smoke while you cool your heels for the next month.

14. If you are into heavy training for your sport, alternate hard and easy days. Weight training, for example, should not work the same muscles on consecutive days or you will be breaking down tissue instead of building. Long runs should alternate with short. Don't perform an arduous rock climb two days in a row. On the night before that big white-water trip, don't max out on the rowing machine. Moderation is the word!

15. Cross-training is one of the most effective and safe ways to improve stamina and performance level, as well as a great way to avoid injury. Choose two or more activities that complement each other, such as weight training and trail running, or biking and swimming.

16. Rest, as in REST! Rest is as important for improving stamina as any workout. The results of overtraining are almost always bad, and they set you back.

17. The word on dietary supplements is NO. Unless your diet does not supply adequate nutrients you are wasting your money, and the same goes for ergogenic aids, according to Johann Coetzee, M.D., M.P.H., at the Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research in Dallas.

18. Maintain your ideal body weight, which takes into account your height and bone structure. Being significantly underweight is no more healthy than being overweight. Work with your activity level and your diet to maintain that balance. You may need to consult a nutrition expert if you don't have a basic knowledge of nutrition.

19. You can't do what you did 20 years ago--no matter who you are. Think safety, think long-term, think success. Less is more!

20. If all else fails, blame it on genetics. Maybe you just weren't meant to climb rocks. Maybe your knees can't hack running those rocky trails. Pursuing the impossible will not improve stamina; it will generate frustration and pain, and sideline you, the athlete. Pick something you can do.

21. Are you lacking power in your tennis game, or during your morning run? Are you doing sit-ups? Strong abdominal muscles not only help prevent or alleviate back problems; they also provide additional power for any activity involving the torso. Lie down, bend knees, feet on floor. Contract abdominal muscles, press back into the floor, rise to about a 30- to 45-degree angle.

22. Weight machines are great for building endurance for your sport and for shaping muscles. If you are new to weight training, consider joining a health club, where you can learn on variable resistance machines, such as the Nautilus system. These machines compensate for a muscle's changes in strength by utilizing cams or levers to vary resistance, keeping it at a maximum level throughout the full range of motion.

23. Just how fast do you have to walk to qualify as a brisk walker? Four miles per hour is good, according to James M. Ripe, M.D., associate professor at Tufts University School of Medicine, and one of the nation's foremost experts on exercise.

24. One of the best ways to add vigor to your life is to add strength training with weights to your lifestyle. Recent research at Tufts University found that women who worked with weights or weight machines for 45 minutes twice a week for a year emerged physiologically younger by 15 to 20 years than when they began.

The Food and Lifestyle Edge

25. If you follow a vegetarian diet and lead an active lifestyle, be sure you know what you are doing. Vegetarians who don't eat dairy foods or other animal products need to use extra care to monitor their consumption of some nutrients that occur mainly or almost exclusively in animal foods. Vitamin [B.sub.12] deficiency is especially common.

26. Sports Music, Inc., will provide a free catalog of audiotapes for every sport imaginable. Call (800) 878-4764, 9:00 to 6:00, EST, for some new tunes to put the "oomph" back in your workout.

27. Are allergies interfering with your sport? Call the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology at (800) 822-2762, a 24-hour hotline. They will send information, and can refer you to physician members of the academy.

28. Know the facts about metabolism--the rate at which you burn calories. The more muscle you carry, the higher your metabolic rate all of the time. This means you can eat more without gaining weight if you are active, better ensuring an adequate intake of necessary nutrients.

29. Choose a breakfast cereal that lists whole wheat, whole grain, whole oat flour, or rolled oats among the first ingredients. This ensures that the product has not been refined and is more likely to contain essential ingredients such as magnesium, manganese, chromium, and copper.

30. To ensure adequate calcium intake, consider these tips if you think you are lactose-intolerant. Consume small portions of low-fat dairy products; eat dairy products with meals or snacks; try yogurt with active cultures (provides enzymes necessary for its digestion); or search out calcium-fortified soy versions of these products.

31. Are you at your optimal weight? People with apple-shaped bodies have a greater risk of coronary artery disease, stroke, hypertension, and diabetes than their pear-shaped peers. Divide your waist measurement by hip measurement. A waist/hip ratio greater than 1.0 for men or 0.8 for women indicates increased cardiac risk, according to the American Heart Association.

32. If you are taking in enough fluids, your urine will run clear most of the day. For every pound you lose to sweat during a workout, you need to drink 16 ounces of fluids or you will become dehydrated.

33. Properly formulated sports drinks (those with 6 to 7 percent carbohydrate concentration) are absorbed 30 percent faster than water, and much faster than drinks with carbohydrate concentrations of 8 percent or more. Studies have shown they improve performance and combat fatigue during exercise sessions of an hour or longer because the body can use them right away.

34. Are you lacking the energy you used to have? Check your diet for "fat overload," one cause not only of too much poundage but of lethargy. Frequent offenders: salad dressing, red meat, fried foods, ice cream, pastries, mayonnaise, whole milk. Read those food labels! Fat calories should number no more than 30 percent of your daily caloric intake.

35. Check out broccoli (a powerhouse of nutrition). One cup of broccoli equals 45 calories, and 90 percent of the daily requirement of beta-carotene, 200 percent of vitamin C, 25 percent of your fiber needs, and significant amounts of several minerals.

36. There's nothing like irregularity to slow you down. Fiber, both soluble (oats, fruits, legumes, veggies) and insoluble (wheat bran, whole grains), are important for health. If you are not currently consuming 25 to 35 grams daily (five servings of fruits and veggies and about six servings of breads, cereals, and legumes), increase consumption gradually to allow your digestive system to adapt.

37. You want to save your energy for your sport and not spend it on the fight/flight response. Learn to relax under pressure. Deep breathing and imaging can help. Take a few deep breaths and imagine a beautiful scene. Worrying saps energy and can reduce stamina.

38. Music is a great motivator. If your sport or workout session can be done with the accompaniment of music, you may find that extra burst of energy you need. Playing music regularly or occasionally will help you avoid getting stale. Increased effort builds stamina.

39. On the job, long stretches of sitting can weaken stomach and back muscles. Badly designed office furniture or auto seats make things worse. Get up and move around frequently. In your chair, stretch up tall with arms overhead; bend forward and touch the floor. Try clasping hands behind head and pulling elbows back gently. Hands clasped overhead, bend left, then right from waist.

40. When you travel on business, try to exercise first thing in the morning. This will help you acclimate to time changes. Later in the day, business meetings may prevent you from following your usual routine.

41. Working out at high altitude is significantly more demanding for the flatlander than for the mountain dweller. Unusually rapid heartbeat or difficulty breathing are signs that your body is not coping well. Stop exercising immediately. Cut back on your intensity during your stay; drink plenty of fluids; avoid alcohol.

42. Energy flagging? Try the full body stretch. Stand with arms relaxed at sides. Rotate head slowly forward, to left, back, to right. Then raise arms overhead and drop forward slowly, bending knees slightly to touch floor. Stretch back up slowly, arms overhead. Again, then relax.

43. Fat-burning is pretty straightforward. If you burn more calories than you take in over the course of a week or more, your body will start burning its fat stores, regardless of whether you burn fat or carbohydrates during any one workout.

44. Extra poundage is not only a health risk but can make you drag during your workouts. Consider that the government has released a more stringent height and weight table as part of its updated "Dietary Guidelines for Americans." This new table does not allow for creeping poundage after age 35, as the earlier 1990 edition did. Shed that fat!

45. Don't get sandbagged by osteoporosis just when you think life as an athlete is beginning. Call the National Osteoporosis Foundation, (800) 464-6700 (Monday-Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.; weekends, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. EST), for the latest information. There is now a quick painless test to determine whether your bones are thinning.

46. Don't let dinner out undo all your good work. Since 1991, restaurants have been increasing portions in response to demand. Ask for a doggy bag and take the extra home.

47. Any way you serve it, pasta contains about 210 calories a cup, and just one gram of fat. No wonder pasta (not the sauce!) is such an efficient fuel!

48. The most effective way to avoid catching those pesky office colds that drain your energy is to wash your hands. Avoid touching your nose and eyes with your hands; don't share cups, pens, or phones with cold sufferers.

49. Ill-fitting shoes are thought to cause about 80 percent of all foot problems, and sore feet can knock you off your peak. When purchasing shoes measure both feet; wear the socks or stockings you will wear with those shoes; shop for shoes at midday or later.

50. Recovery from working out, from work, daily chores, and stress must take place or even the most gung-ho fitness fanatic will eventually crash. If you are not getting seven to eight hours of sleep a night, make some changes in your routine, or your energy will soon wane.

stamina buildup 2

How to begin exercise after a long period of break?

If you haven't exercised in years, it's important to see your doctor before starting any fitness program. Barring any acute health issues, your doctor will probably recommend you begin a well-rounded fitness routine for a healthy heart, strong bones and pain-free joints.

As a beginner, you will want to start slowly to avoid injury to your muscles and joints. While working out will make your body stronger, too much too soon can create soft- tissue injuries like tendonitis and sprains. To avoid injury, choose a lightweight, high-repetition strength-training routine for your legs, hips, shoulders, arms and back. Choose a weight or other form of resistance, such as resistance bands, that you can do 15 reps with good form before taking a break. After at least four to six weeks of consistently using the lighter weights, try upping the weight and lowering the reps.

For your cardio routine, choose a low-impact exercise such as walking, biking, swimming or stair climbing. These activities will help you boost your aerobic capacity and burn calories, and they're easier on your joints until you have the strength to safely do more high-impact training.

Balance, core and flexibility training are important precursors to more challenging activities and should be included in your fitness routine to help strengthen and support your joints. Pilates, yoga, and stability ball training are great choices for this type of training for both the novice and the experienced exerciser.

Keep in mind is how often you plan to exercise. While it is advisable to start slowly by choosing exercises that won't hurt your joints, the number of times you exercise each week needs to be fairly consistent for any positive change to occur within your body. If you have led an inactive lifestyle recently, try to work in at least 20 minutes of exercise each day. If you already lead a fairly active lifestyle—you take the stairs when you can, you often play outdoors with your kids, you are often on your feet and walking—then start by devoting 40 minutes to an hour three times a week to pure physical activity.
Tips on Building Stamina

By Jae Ireland
eHow Contributing Writer

Building your stamina is imperative to improve your performance in sports and fitness activities. If you feel like you are less than in peak shape, you may want to think about creating a fitness regimen in order to improve your stamina. The more you work, the more you'll be able to sustain your stamina and energy levels while participating in different sports, whether it be a simple game of pick up basketball, or running in a 5K. Here's how.
Training Session Habits

If you feel like you are out of shape and have no stamina whatsoever, you are going to need to employ a training regimen that will help you build up your stamina slowly. In order to make an activity a habit, you need to perform it at least 21 times, so in your stamina training, make sure you are diligent. Even if you don't particularly feel like training, you must do it, otherwise you will lose the stamina you've built up during previous training sessions. Whether you are running daily or hitting the elliptical, make sure to do it every day and be diligent about your routine.
Building Up Activity

As you train, you should start small and then work up to the activity level that will build the most stamina for you. You may start with a 20-minute workout, and each day increase your work out time by five minutes. Or you may start with one weight set, and increase your weight by 5 lbs. each week. Starting slowly will ensure that you not only have attainable goals, but you don't strain your body. You should build your activity level gradually until you reach the amount of stamina that you feel is acceptable.
Altitude Training

We all know that the higher you get in altitude, the thinner the air is, therefore the harder it is to train. Altitude training is the practice of performing your sport in a higher altitude than is necessary to train your lungs for better stamina. Many basketball teams have training facilities in Colorado and Utah, which help them to build stamina. To try altitude training, look up a hiking trail near you that is higher than where you live and normally train. Try to do your normal training routine. You'll most likely find it challenging at first, but after some training sessions, you'll notice that your stamina has been built up significantly.
Swimming is an all time great activity / exercise for heart health

When it comes to heart health, nearly all kinds of exercise are helpful; the trick is to do enough (30 minutes or so of moderate activity) often enough (nearly every day). Walking is often held up as the gold standard -- most people can do it, it's easy on the body, and it doesn't require any special equipment beyond a good pair of walking shoes. Walking isn't the only way to protect your heart and improve health, but it's the best option for the largest number of people.

More vigorous activities will improve health in less time than walking. The lion's share of research has focused on running because it's a logical extension of walking and because it's a popular form of exercise. Swimming, by comparison, has been a backwater of exercise research, with barely a trickle of studies over the years on swimming and heart disease. But a study published last year highlighted the health benefits of swimming.

Researchers compared blood pressure, cholesterol levels, maximum energy output and other measures of cardiovascular health across nearly 46,000 male and female walkers, runners, swimmers and couch potatoes. Swimmers and runners had the best numbers, followed fairly closely by walkers. As you might expect, people who didn't exercise had the highest weights and resting heart rates -- and the worst cholesterol levels and overall fitness.

What makes swimming so beneficial? For one thing, it gives the heart and other muscles a solid workout. This trains the body to use oxygen more efficiently, which helps bring down the resting heart rate and breathing rate. And because you use your arms, legs and all the muscle groups in between, swimming improves muscle strength and flexibility.

Water cushions the body, eliminating the kind of pounding associated with running. Because it's easy on the joints and muscles, swimming is often recommended for people who have arthritis and for those who are overweight. The resistance of water also allows you to work out vigorously with little chance of injury.

There's also a relaxing, meditative side to swimming. It can come with letting your mind drift as you focus on your breathing and your movements. This stress-busting ability makes the list of swimming's cardiovascular benefits even longer.

Best of all, swimming is an activity you can do across your life span, and you needn't give up it late in life. And it's never too late to learn how to swim or to brush up on strokes you learned as a child.

If you're a beginner or are getting back into swimming, start slowly with five to 10 minutes of smooth lap swimming. (For safety's sake, never swim alone.) As you get used to the exercise, and your strokes, kicks and breathing become more efficient, you'll be able to swim for longer periods. Mix up your strokes -- freestyle, backstroke, butterfly, whatever you can do. In addition to keeping your swimming routine fresh, the variety helps you work different muscles.

If you tire of doing laps, there are excellent aquatic alternatives to swimming. Try walking or running in water. It is far easier on the joints than walking or running on land but offers an equally good cardiovascular workout. Another option is water aerobics. This type of exercise is a staple at many community centers, YMCAs, schools and other facilities with pools.

Although swimming (and cycling, for that matter) can be great for the heart, lungs, blood vessels and muscles, your friend is right that it doesn't do much for the bones. While most body systems receive the maximum health benefit from aerobic forms of activity, bones are different. Stress, in the form of weight-bearing exercise, is necessary to stimulate the growth of new bone.

Any activity that works against gravity -- running, walking, playing soccer, weight lifting or dancing, for example -- can help build bone. Even daily activities such as stair climbing help, so you don't necessarily need to cut down on your swimming to fit weight-bearing exercise into your schedule. Talk to your doctor about what combination of activities makes the most sense for you.

One final note: Water leaches natural oils from your skin and hair, and chlorine compounds the problem. Wear a cap while you swim. Afterwards, wash your hair with a clarifying shampoo and apply a conditioner; look for products designed for use after sun or pool. Use a body wash or soap with bath oil, and then apply generous amounts of moisturizing body lotion. That way, you'll not only feel good, you'll look good, too!

How to Build Up Your Stamina in Three Days

By Ryan Angus
eHow Contributing Writer

Atheletes are usually concerned with building speed and strength, and with this focus it is easy to ignore another important "S": stamina. Stamina keeps the spring in your step---helping you sustain energy over long stretches of time. The two quickest ways to increase your stamina are building strength and increasing mileage (walking, running or biking). In this article we will look at exercises and workouts that you can do to safely and quickly increase stamina.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

* Bike (optional) Jump Rope (optional) Exercise Mat (optional)

Quickly Build Stamina

1. Step 1

Run in the morning, if possible, at a slow pace so that you can maximize your mileage. Morning running will give you energy through your day and will also help you burn more calories through the day; helping you to increase your stamina. If you cannot run, then walking or jogging is a good alternative.

2. Step 2

Strength train with weights if you have access to exercise equipment. This type of training is also best done in the morning if you have the time. If you do not have access to weights, a good alternative is to do push-ups, sit-ups and pull-ups.

3. Step 3

Do speed work on a track or run hills to both increase your lung capacity and build strength in your leg muscles. These types of workouts are helpful because they are like a strength and cardio workout combined.

4. Step 4

Jump rope as a cross-training exercise to increase the amount of air taken in by your lungs. This is one of the most effective exercises for lowering your resting pulse and thereby increasing your stamina.

5. Step 5

Bike on the roads or the mountains to increase your stamina. Biking increases stamina by allowing you to work your heart and lungs for a longer, sustained amount of time than running. It is also a great way to build strong, lean legs.

6. Step 6

Start a daily yoga routine. Yoga can be a productive stamina building workout. It helps build long, lean muscles, increases lung capacity and fills you with energy.

7. Step 7

Eat healthy, energy packed foods. In general these are foods that are low in fat, mostly unprocessed, high in protein, and full of vitamins and minerals. Focus on fruits and vegetables, lean meats and whole grains.



Tips & Warnings

* Don't push yourself too hard. These workouts can build up your stamina slightly in three days, but larger increases in stamina take time. You will just be tired If you push too hard, instead of building up stamina..

Stamina Build up

5 Ways To Build Up Your Stamina

1. Do you look at little kids running around all the time and wonder where they get all that energy? Do you look at them and remember that you used to do that, or wonder if you used to do that?

2. All kids have stamina that goes on forever. However, as we age, most of us lose that stamina because we haven’t kept up with our health in any fashion, and the foods we eat affect us differently. As a child, if someone gave you a lot of sugar, you’d run like a wild person until you finally crashed. As an older person, you’d probably just crash and fall asleep after awhile.

3. Metabolism has a lot to do with how we process our foods. We can control parts of how our metabolism will work by getting into a workout routine that helps stimulate digestion, which is pretty much what metabolism is all about. Would you like to find the energy to do things that you haven’t felt like doing in a very long time? Here are some ways to regain a bit of that energy and stamina.


First, determine that you’re going to do something. This isn’t a physical tip, but a mental tip. Many people say they want to do something, then don’t do anything at all, or do it for a few days expecting results, and quit. If you really decide you want to do it, get yourself either a large notepad or a large calendar. List what you want to do on a daily basis, then do it. Every day you complete it, or a portion of it, mark it off your list. Set up a 30-day trial for yourself to see if you can do something at least 20 days. They say it takes doing something at least 16 times for it to become a habit you’ll miss; give it a shot.


2. Start off by walking. Walking is one of the best exercises in the world for most people. You can decide to either walk on a treadmill, or do outside and walk. Many people don’t like treadmills because after awhile, even if you have a TV or stereo, it feels boring. So, alternate between that and going outside for a walk. Start out walking at a pace you can handle, and try to get at least 15 minutes in. If you have a course of some kind, such as walking around your block in the neighborhood, that works well also. If you can find a place where it’s beautiful and scenic, such as a park or walking along a lake or river, even better. It helps you stay inspired and want to continue doing it over and over.


At some point, you’ll want to alternate between walking faster and walking slower. What you might try to do is find a place where you can walk at least 15 minutes in one direction. Try walking that one at a brisker pace than you normally would. Then, when you get to your marker, walk back at a slower, regular pace. If you can’t do 15 minutes of a hard walk, do as long as you can, then when you reach your limit turn around and walk normally; it all helps.


3. If you have a bicycle, and the seat doesn’t hurt too much, this offers a great cardio workout. The thing about a bicycle is that you can go so many more places than just walking, get there faster, and your legs move faster which gives you a better workout. Also, when you get a little bit tired, you can coast and you’re still moving forward, or back to where you want to do, with minimal effort. The important thing about biking is to make sure your body is comfortable; if not, you’ll quit pretty quickly.

4. There are plenty of other motion exercises that will help you gain more stamina. Some are a bit more intense, such as running and jogging, whereas others are a bit more sedate and easy to handle, such as yoga and tai chi. The thing here is that your body needs movement, steady movement, and whether it’s controlled or not, it’s movement and motion that helps you build up your stamina.

Many people buy pedometers to measure how many steps they take every day, and if you can shoot for at least 5,000 steps or more a day, your body will benefit from it. This is more of a cumulative type of exercising rather than getting it all in one burst, but you could view it in a way where you use the early part of the day just walking around, then later on try to find a way to get the rest of the steps in, even if it’s just another short walk of some kind.


5. You’ve got to change up your diet. Instead of telling you what to eat, we’ll tell you what drags you down. As you get older, the more carbs you eat without some kind of balance with protein and grains, the most apt you’re going to be to have energy sapped out of you. If you’ve noticed that when you eat certain meals you’re ready to go to sleep in the afternoon, that’s a pretty good indicator of the types of foods you might need to back off from.

Bread, especially white bread, will bring you down. Rice, potatoes, and pasta will shut you down. Too much sugar in something will shut you down also. The best things are more protein, leaner meats if you can, and vegetables. Some people will shut down if they eat too much fruit in the afternoon because it’s natural sweetener, fructose, is still sugar, something that vegetables don’t have in them. The most important thing here is to listen to your body, because even certain proteins will affect some people differently than others.

If you can try to follow each of these tips for at least a 30-day period, you might notice some very positive changes in your body that you like. Because, as you increase your stamina, you should also lose weight and inches off your body. And if that doesn’t inspire you to do more, we don’t know what will.