It’s Victoria Day Long Weekend today! No blogpost besides this: Happy Victoria Day! Check back tomorrow!
Holistic Jose. Holistic Personal Trainer.
Fat Loss through Holistic Living
Excuses – Part IV – Energy
The Excuse: I don’t have the energy.
When you actually think about it, this excuse makes no sense. Here’s the thing: the more energy you put out, the more energy you get back. It’s like physics. There is a transfer of energy. When you simply stay at your current energy, you keep the same energy. If you transfer energy - to working out, moving, being active – you burn calories, which is a food energy. Wikipedia says, “The calorie is a pre-SI metric unit of energy.” Remember, life is flowing and if you’re not flowing, you’re not living, just simply existing day-to-day getting closer to death. Live and flow freely!
I can already hear all you couch potatoes disagreeing as you read this. You don’t have to believe a word I say – just try it out for yourself. Start moving, start transferring energy. Do this for at least a month. Exert energy and consume enough energy – calories – but not too much and I promise you the energy will be least 10 fold when it comes back to you.
As long as you sleep, rest and recover you will gain more energy than you put out. As long as you eat the right food, which in essence is a transfer of energy, you should gain more energy. Exercise enough and don’t over-train as that can deplete your energy, know your limits. Eat shit, feel like shit. Eat healthy, wholesome, vibrant, fresh food, feel healthy wholesome, vibrant…you get the idea!
In simple English, I took this formula from Wikipedia:
C6H12O6 + 6O2 → 6CO2 + 6H2OC57H110O6 + 81.5O2 → 57CO2 + 55H2O
I’m sure we all get that, right?!?
“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.” – Jim Rohn.
Excuses – Part III – It Will Take A Long Time
Continuing with the week of debunking excuses, comes one that is most frustrating.
The Excuse: It will take a long time.
Ask yourself this question: how old will you be in 1 year if you don’t start leading a healthier lifestyle? Now, ask yourself the same question but this time you started to live a healthier lifestyle starting today! So for example: “I would be 45 years old next year if I didn’t live a healthier lifestyle but if I did, I would be 45 years old next year and living a healthier lifestyle for one year and going.” That is one year of a better, more enriching lifestyle. So what excuse are we talking about again? I think that just invalidates the excuse right there. On to the next blog post! I suppose some people might need more convincing…
We only have now…now….now! There is no tomorrow. Tomorrow never dies. Tomorrow never comes and all we have is today. So live in the moment and feel better instantly by eating better and exercising. You really only have two simple choices. You can either not lead a healthy lifestyle and live the way many sedentary people live: a sluggish, slow, lifestyle with emotional and mental mood swings (living healthily helps decrease these significantly). Or you can live a healthy lifestyle and get the benefits such as emotional and mental clarity, being in better shape, enjoying life with your family more (especially with the highly active kids) and just look and feel better about yourself.
It may take a while to get into the habit of leading a healthy lifestyle but the point here is to start now and keep doing your best to stay and be at your healthiest. Don’t give up while you’re alive. I have never met anyone who regretted working out, eating healthier or improve their lifestyle. Please email me when you meet a person who says, “I regret looking, feeling, doing better in life. I regret having more energy, looking vibrant and feeling sharper. I regret all the benefits despite the struggles of attaining this.” I would really like to meet that person. I am a curious cat, you know.
It is never too late to start a healthy lifestyle and it doesn’t matter how old you are. Even if you’re in your 50′s, 60′s or 70′s, you can at least slow down aging and feel better and healthier.
Health doesn’t take a long time, I believe health is a state of mind, too. There is physical, emotional and mental health. All you need is a change in your mentality to change your physicality and the emotions will just come naturally.
Excuses – Part II – No Time!
Today, we’re continuing with the theme of excuses. This is one that I hear constantly! Don’t have time for exercising and switching to a healthier lifestyle? That sounds like an excuse to me!
The excuse: I don’t have time.
We all have the same amount of time each day: 24 hours! I know some people have more on their plate than others but if you really prioritize and care about your health, you will do anything and everything to make it to the gym and kitchen! Many people obviously see the value in lining up hours before the launch of the newest iPhone or iPad. They take the day off work, bring their lawn chairs, food, boom box, etc. just to be one of the first to own the latest Apple gadget.
Why can’t you do the same for health? Set out some time for exercise instead of watching TV even though TV is a form of relaxation for you. Exercise is a source of stress relief for many people. Give it a try. Make it a habit. Habits are hard to break as we all know. We are creatures of habit. And the current habit sedentary people have is being sedentary. Slowly break that habit by decreasing your “sitting on your ass” time and replacing it with “kicking ass at the gym” time.
It is true that healthier meals take more time to prepare than pizza pockets but it does not always have to be the case.
Salads are easy, fast and fun to make. Eating a banana and some nuts doesn’t take any preparation time. All you need is a better mind frame and research on fast, easy, healthy meals.
If you still believe that it just takes more time to plan healthier meals then here is the best analogy for you. Imagine this: it’s winter and time to switch your summer tires for winter tires. You know you need to make time to go to the garage and switch the sets of tires but once you do it, you drive faster, better, safer and more efficiently in the snow.
The same thing goes for food preparation. You can just buy the cheapest, most convenient food (although unhealthy) because of lack of time, you still end up being slower, sluggish, less efficient, etc due to the low quality, high convenience food you choose. If you choose high quality food, some of which takes more time to prep, you will definitely reap the rewards. The benefits of eating healthy are numerous including mental clarity, improved mood, self-esteem, efficiency, and many more!
So I hope you see how investing in health and wellness can actually save you more time than waste more time. It is just a common misconception that society keeps telling itself. I and all my clients can attest to this. I want you to know this truth by practising it yourself. I promise you won’t regret it. Good luck!
Excuses – Part I – Too Difficult!
As a personal trainer, I talk to new members and new / current clients all the time. I hear too many excuses from people who want to look and feel great but are just impeding their results by constantly giving excuses! I will be doing a mini-series on excuses this week to show you how easily they can be debunked. After all excuses are just that – excuses.
The excuse: It will be difficult.
What would be more difficult:
1. Starting an exercise program and slowly improving your lifestyle or,
2. Staying sedentary and doing what you normally do?
I believe number 1 is easier to do. Of course, right? I’m a personal trainer! But wait a minute and hear me out. Being fit and healthy is easier as all you have to do is increase your quality of life! Did you get that? Increase your quality of life…through exercise and lifestyle improvements. That includes eating healthier foods, getting enough rest and more. So when you eat better, exercise and get enough rest, you live better! Which means you perform better at work (think promotion) and at home with family or at social events (a person people want to be around). You gain self-esteem, more self worth and a rejuvenated outlook on life!
Compare that to a sedentary lifestyle. If you aren’t staying healthy, you continuously feel sluggish, slow,and mentally dull, have low energy, take one too many sick days etc. Now I think that is a more difficult lifestyle to live, don’t you agree? Trying to get by with life, dragging yourself around, squeezing into tight clothes, hallways, train / plane seats, huffing and puffing up and even down a flight of stairs! Who really wants to live like that? People focus too much on the hardship and struggle when they should focus on the benefits and rewards.
Here are a few steps to slowly work towards getting healthier:
Slowly vary the ratio. Be it diet: gradually decrease starchy carbs while increasing leafy greens on your dinner plate; or exercise: slowly increase the frequency and duration at the gym every week. This makes the change less noticeable. It’s like dimming the lights at night compared to switching off the lights. Huge difference in eye sight especially when you’re trying to get somewhere.
Okay, let me validate that excuse. Let’s say it is difficult to exercise. The best advice I can give you is to change your mindset. Is anything easy in life really worth it? You can be a great basketball athlete and easily win a regional basketball championship. But that will never be as rewarding as rewarding winning the NBA Championship even when though that is a thousand times harder to achieve.
Another example I like giving is climbing up a hill. It is hard but once you get to the top, you get to enjoy the view. However, if you climb a higher, bigger, mountain, the view and the journey will be exponentially more rewarding! So looking at both ways: it will be difficult vs it will be easy, you cannot go wrong when you see both situations with the best scenarios there are.
Here’s a idea: build momentum. The initial force you exert on yourself is the most difficult but once you get the ball rolling, the same amount of force will have a more significant return. It’s the snowball effect. So stop excusing yourself from the life you’ve been dreaming about. I know you can do better.
Zest-o Pesto! Oh!
So I decided to make my own zesto pesto because I like making stuff! And I have a Vitamix blender. And I like soaking my own seeds. This recipe has a few seeds in it. And I have yet to see an organic version of this cilantro based pesto. So all the ingredients for my homemade zesto pesto are organic.
This recipe is so simple that you can eye-ball the amounts of all the ingredients. I eye-ball the measurement because I just got the ingredient list from the original commercial packaging I initially tried and duplicated successfully.
Ingredients:
Coriander (Cilantro)
Sunflower Oil
Lemon Juice
Sunflower Seeds (soaked in water for about 8 hours)
Sea salt
Pepper
Pepper flakes
Here we go:
Soak the seeds overnight. How nutty do you want your pesto?
Wash it well. I used two bunches of coriander.
Tips on washing produce:
http://holisticjose.com/2012/04/25/wash-your-fruits/
Blend coriander with cold pressed sunflower oil
Squeeze 1 or 2 lemons into the mix. I used two lemons
Crushed red pepper to taste
Sorry. This is an ugly picture of the finished product. I was too excited to eat it and forgot to take more pictures.
I went Tasmanian Devil on it and ate a lot of it.
To me, zesto pesto is like Frank’s Red Hot! I put that shit on everything!
Especially on food that doesn’t really taste that good….like the first AND LAST time I cooked kidney!
Get Moving
If you have a sedentary job, you should make it a point to stretch and move every so often.
You are a body of water. If you don’t move, you turn into stagnant blood – stagnant water. What type of body of water would you rather be?
A swamp?
Stagnant, stinky lifeless.
Or a river?
Clean, free-flowing, full of life!
So for people who have desk jobs, enjoy this stretching program!
Guilt-Free Dessert
Eating dessert is thought of as an indulgence by many. After all, even if you bake it yourself, there are often unhealthy ingredients in the recipe. Luckily for those of us with a sweet tooth there are now many options that allow for healthy, guilt-free desserts.
This Sunday, I baked delicious macaroons using a recipe from Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon.
Ingredients:
4 Egg Whites
Pinch of Sea Salt
2 tablespoon Arrowroot Flour
½ cup Maple Syrup
1 tablespoon Vanilla Extract
2 cups Dried Unsweetened Coconut Meat, finely cut
Butter
First, I lined the baking sheet with buttered parchment paper. Get the Unbleached Totally Chlorine-Free (TFC) kind.
Then I beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt in a clean bowl for about 5-10 minutes. I suggest buying whole eggs and separating the yolk from the whites as separately sold egg whites tend to be processed.
Beat in arrowroot flour, maple syrup and vanilla extract.
Finally, fold in the coconut meat.
Bake for 30 minutes at 300 degrees, then reduce oven to 200 degrees and bake another hour.
Voila, the finished product!
Store it on an airtight container. Try this out yourself and tell me how it goes!
