Shannan’s Journey

Letting it Go….

It is common to encounter several disappointments each and every day. Whether our expectations are not met, our plans get altered, our "to do list" is not completed or our lives take us in a direction we were not aware of, we discover that our lives are under forces beyond our control.

Our response to situations and disappointments are powerful because it determins how we act and what we do, mentally and physically! The tension that sits in our gut, bodies and minds when these dissapointmnet occur, can interrupt our lives and well-being and cause stress, anxiety and detour us from our goals. When we stop worrying about relatively unimportant matters, we can be at peace and devote so much more of ourselves to what is truly important.

The small stuff "frustrations and irritations" can have so much power over us and can take control of us and our actions. But every problem is a learning experience and has the potential to teach us something new. It is normal for us to want to put large amounts of emotional energy in minor situations and frustrations in order to avoid issues that may come from that situations but really, is that the best thing to do? The intensity of our response provides us with a TEMPORARY sense of power and accomplishment but these are only temporary and short lived!

Really, it is only when we let the little stuff go that we realize that the big stuff is not really a big deal at all.

In these types of situations, Ask yourself whether the emotions you are feeling will be as vivid in a year, a day, or even an hour. As focused as you are on this moment in time, let your emotions go and see how it feels. You can not avoid lives’ situations but you can learn to deal with them in a well mannered and peaceful ways.

DON’T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF, ONLY SWEAT THE STUFF THAT MATTERS….

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It takes your food seven seconds to get from your mouth to your stomach.

 One human hair can support 3 kg (6.6 lb).

 The average man’s penis is three times the length of his thumb.

 Human thighbones are stronger than concrete.

 A woman’s heart beats faster than a man’s.

 There are about one trillion bacteria on each of your feet.
 
 Women blink twice as often as men.

 The average person’s skin weighs twice as much as the brain.
 
 Your body uses 300 muscles to balance itself when you are standing still.

 If saliva cannot dissolve something, you cannot taste it.

 Women reading this will be finished now.

 Men are still busy checking their thumbs.   
 
 

Avoid Introducing Young Children to Sugar in the First Place

Almost all children find sweets appealing. Forestall their exposure to candy, sugar and all sorts of sweets (even fruit juice) for as long as possible. It will happen soon enough. Early exposure to sweets impairs cultivation of other tastes and an appreciation for natural fruits and vegetables. Be a role model for children and keep sweets out of the house.

Put lemon juice into a glass of water with some splenda to sweeten it for a natural low carb, low calorie lemonade…. give options of sweet-tasting or yummy herbal teas like, orange, english breakfast, jasmine, chamomile, even licorice or fennel. Or, squeeze a fresh orange into a glass of water to dilute the natural sugar per serving. Avoid sweetened beverages and especially soda pop. Resist the temptation to give kids sweets to make them happy or pacify temper tantrums. No good can come of it.

Encourage Children’s Tastes for Healthy Foods

Toddlers and young children will often eat a little at a time, and little of one particular item or dish. However, children may be hungry often and prefer to snack throughout the day. You may be more successful in cultivating an appreciation for vegetables by trying not to force a child to eat an entire helping of broccoli, for example, but having a wide variety of vegetables available and allowing just one or two bites at a time. This helps young taste buds acquire an appreciation of a wide variety of vegetable flavors.

Children will also tend to eat more and appreciate more vegetable flavors and textures when veggies are lightly steamed (even if served chilled); a variety of dipping sauces is available. Allow children to graze on vegetables cut into bite-sized pieces and dip them in a sweet sauce such as Russian dressing, or a cheesy sauce such as ranch dressing. Peanut-butter dressings and honey vinaigrettes are often tolerated, while spicy barbecue and complex blends are not.

Children often favor the sweeter vegetables: carrots, peas and corn. Once you find something a child likes (or at least tolerates), continue serving it while attempting to widen his horizons toward broccoli, brussels sprouts and celery. Initial rejection is no reason to stop serving the food. A child may have to encounter the vegetable on 10 or more occasions before he/she acquires a taste for it. Keep trying: Serving it with different sauces, cooked a different way and/or with other condiments until the palate can be developed.

Search for Natural Sweets with Some Health Benefits

Search out and develop alternatives to candy, ice cream, cookies and store-bought sweets, pastries and donuts. Make smoothies with frozen bananas and soy milk or fresh fruit as an ice cream alternative. Stew whole pears or apples and serve with cinnamon, dried fruit, coconut or any other natural sweet a child might like. Make a whole-grain pancake or waffle and offer it as a dessert with fresh fruit slices, peanut butter and a drizzle of honey or maple syrup. Bake homemade cookies with redeeming nutritional virtues. Bake with honey instead of white or brown sugar. Use cranberries, dates, raisins, chopped fruit, applesauce or mashed bananas to sweeten recipes, and add nuts, flax seeds, wheat germ, oatmeal, coconuts or other ingredients to reduce the amount of flour and increase the nutrient and fiber content.

Things can be tasty and healthy or, at least better for you than what is on the shelves.

If the gym is packed, and you can’t access the equipment you want… find something else just as good.  May not be what you are use to doing, but the fact of the matter is, you probably could use something new in your routine to either break up the boredum of it all or, your body is screaming for a new move to hit and tweak the body in a different way.Always have a Plan B in case Plan A can’t be done to a "T." From an exercise selection standpoint, it’s easiest to just stratify things into the following categories:

Quad-dominant: front squats, back squats,
Hip-dominant: deadlifts, good mornings, box squats
Single-leg: lunges, Bulgarian split squats, scissor jump squats, step-ups
Horizontal Push: DB or BB bench pressing, push-ups
Horizontal Pull: rows, (DB or BB)
Vertical Push: overhead pressing
Vertical Pull: pull-ups, pulldowns (close or wide grip)

Of course, this isn’t an exhaustive resource; there are a lot of other facets (e.g., subcategories of "core" training), but on the whole, if you can’t get to an exercise, just figure out where it would be in this seven-category scheme, and then pick something else. Exercise selection is just one acute programming variable, and sometimes life gets in the way. There is always something else you can do in a gym.

Cool Routines for Building Muscle, Burning Fat

by Chad WaterburyOf all the things you can do to make your workouts more effective for building muscle and burning fat, adding volume ranks at the top of the list.

It’s as simple as the SAID principle, which states that your body will specifically adapt to the imposed demand. When you increase the volume of your workouts your body has no choice other than to adapt—adapt or die. Okay, I’m being overly dramatic, but you get the point.

Based on recent research, your body adapts in two ways. First, it upregulates protein synthesis so your muscles get bigger.(1) Second, it increases your anabolic hormones by ramping up the production of growth hormone and almighty Testosterone.(2,3) Growth hormone burns fat and builds muscle, and Testosterone is, as you know, the most powerful muscle builder on the planet. Increasing both results in a leaner, more muscular physique.

You’re probably thinking you need to go back to the early 80’s style of training with two-hour marathon sessions, right? Nope. Just keep the rest periods short. Research suggests that incomplete rest periods will produce more growth hormone, and build more muscle, than longer rest periods.(2)

Therefore, a logical question arises: How can you best increase the volume of your workouts while keeping the rest periods as brief as possible? I’m going to take the advice of big-schnozzed Ringo Starr and tell you “with a little help from my friends.”

For any the following methods I recommend using a weight you could lift 10 times while fresh. This load is sufficient to recruit a large number of muscle fibers, but it’s also light enough to perform quite a few reps in about an hour, provided you do it right.

Here’s how you do it right.

Climb a Ladder

Pavel Tsatsouline is known for advocating training methods that work. Not only that, but we have him to thank for the explosion of kettlebell training in this country. One of his best methods is the ladder system, where you start with one rep of an exercise and keep adding a rep with each set until you reach 5 reps.

At that point, revert back to one rep and keep the system going until you reach a target number of reps, say, 50. This is a sure-fire way to cram as much volume as possible into a short amount of time.

For ladders, Pavel recommends starting with a load that you could lift anywhere from 5-15 times while fresh. But as mentioned above, I’ve had success with a happy medium. My clients use a weight they could lift 10 times while fresh to start the following sequence.

1 rep
Rest 30 seconds
2 reps
Rest 30 seconds
3 reps
Rest 30 seconds
4 reps
Rest 30 seconds
5 reps
Rest 30 seconds and repeat the sequence 2-4 more times.

After reaching 5 reps, revert back to one rep and start the sequence over. This entire process should be repeated 3-5 times.

I’m a fan of this system because it manages fatigue just about as well as it can be managed. Once you start getting tired, you pull in the reigns and get back to one rep. This allows you to knock out more reps than you could have if you dropped the hammer and burned yourself out on the first few sets.

The Austrian Oak, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is known for saying that to build big lats you should do wide-grip pull-ups for 50 reps (per session), no matter how many sets it takes. For me, ladders will get you there the fastest.

Try it with any compound exercise that adds muscle where you need it most. Front squats for bigger thighs; deadlifts for a more muscular posterior chain; chin-ups or dips for a more massive upper body.

Cranking out 20 strict pull-ups is a feat that many have yet to master. That’s a shame because it’s a damn good test of relative strength (a measure of how strong you are in relation to your body weight), not to mention an incredible upper-body builder. Add in two ladder workouts each week with a target of 100 reps (10 cycles), and you’ll impress the bikini-clad beach bunnies in no time.

Embrace An Antagonist

When you perform back-to-back sets of the same exercise, your performance tanks in a New York minute. Protons accumulate, muscles acidify, and before you know it, localized fatigue has set up shop in your muscles.

Now you’re relegated to using lighter weights, and unfortunately, you now have to wait for the dumbbells that Janice, the 40-something cougar in a leopard print leotard, is using to do side raises.

The solution to this problem, however, is simple. Alternate each set of an exercise with another exercise that works the opposing muscle group.

If you do an overhead press, throw in a set of pull-ups in the middle of your rest period. If you’re working your chest, alternate it with a rowing exercise. And for squats or deadlifts, alternate either with an exercise for the upper body: a deadlift with a push press or a squat with a dip, for example.

The beauty of antagonist training is it allows you to maintain your strength for a longer time. You’ll ultimately build more size and strength since you recruit the most muscle fibers when the load is highest.

Now I know that alternating between a deadlift and push press isn’t really antagonist training, but the alternative idea of pairing the leg extension with a leg curl just doesn’t smell right in my training book.

You could, theoretically, pair a quad-dominant exercise like the front squat with a hip-dominant exercise like the Romanian deadlift, but there’s simply too much carryover between the two. Stick with the upper/lower pairing for best results.

Start with a weight you could lift 10 times while fresh for each exercise and do the following routine three times per week for three weeks.

1A) Power snatch for 5 reps
Rest 30 seconds
1B) Dip for 5 reps
Rest 30 seconds and repeat 6 more times

2A) Zercher squat for 5 reps
Rest 30 seconds
2B) Push press for 5 reps
Rest 30 seconds and repeat 6 more times

This routine will build total body size and strength faster than other workouts that take twice as long and use three times as many exercises.

For a progression, focus on adding more reps to each set when you repeat the workout. In essence, you end up doing more volume in the same amount of time. This “escalating density” approach works great for building muscle and it’s what made Charles Staley’s EDT system such a fan favorite.

Get Huge in a Hurry

For the purposes of this article, you’ll start with a weight that, once again, you can lift 10 times while fresh.

You’ll do as many reps as you can with maximum acceleration until your speed slows down noticeably. At that point, you’ll take a brief rest before doing the same with an antagonist exercise, or an upper/lower body exercise pairing. Continue knocking out as many fast reps as possible until you reach 50 for each exercise.

Load: A weight you could lift 10 times while fresh
Target Reps: 50

1A) Front squat
Rest 45 seconds
1B) Push press
Rest 45 seconds and repeat until you reach 50 reps

2A) Deadlift with snatch grip
Rest 45 seconds
2B) Dip
Rest 45 seconds and repeat until you reach 50 reps

This progression works differently than you’re probably used to seeing. Initially, you’ll focus on adding more reps to each set. This will come quickly due to strength adaptations that occur with fast lifts.

Once you can perform 15 reps for the first set, it’s time to increase the load so you fall back around the 10-rep range for your first set.

Final Words

Make no mistake about it: if you wanna grow, you’ve got to add volume to your workouts. These volume-boosting methods will add size and strength to your frame while upregulating the hormones that help your body burn fat. Feel free to mix and match the three different methods I outlined in order to keep your training fresh.

After a few months you’ll be sportin’ a body that’s as strong as it looks!

The Most Popular Bakeware Should Be Avoided Like the Plague

Teflon is one of the most popular bakeware materials in America. Teflon and other non-stick brand names comprise up to 77% of the entire bakeware market.

So what’s wrong with it?

Well, for starters, Teflon is made from perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a synthetic chemical used in production that creates the soap-like slipperiness and non-stick finish.

Once heated, Teflon and other non-stick bakeware will quickly reach temperatures at which toxic fumes release into the air. And it doesn’t take much heat to do this – the coating begins to break down and release toxins at a temperature of only 446° F.

PFOA has become very controversial because of potential health dangers…

In animal studies, PFOA posed health hazards like:

• Serious changes in organs including the brain, prostate, liver, thymus, and kidneys, showing toxicity.
• Death of several rat pups due to PFOA exposure.
• Changes in the pituitary in female rats, at all doses. Changes in the size of the pituitary indicate toxicity.
• PFOA contributed to tumor growth in at least four different organs in animal tests, and indicated in an increase in prostate cancer in PFOA plant workers.

Now the various PFOA doses used in these animal experiments weren’t necessarily the same exposure levels you might get from Teflon. But they clearly show the potential danger from PFOA.

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Here’s a Foolproof Way to Help You Find the Safest and

Healthiest Bakeware Out There

There is simply no need to expose your family to unnecessary health risks of exploding glass cookware or inhaling dangerous fluoride compounds from Teflon bakeware.

I’ve put together a simple checklist you can use to not only help you find a replacement for your hazardous glass bakeware, but also to help you find the overall healthiest choice for you and your family.

Your bakeware and baking appliances must:

•  Thoroughly demonstrate they can withstand extreme temperature changes without shattering or exploding – you must be able to move your bakeware appliance from your oven… to the countertop… and into your freezer without shattering
•  Prove to be non-toxic to you and your family – avoid baking appliances that produce chemicals, toxins, gases, or leach metals into your food
•  Be attractive in your kitchen and offer a variety of shapes and sizes to handle your baking needs
•  Bake your food consistently and thoroughly
•  Save you as much energy as possible through efficient baking, and is easy on the environment
•  Be durable and strong, yet lightweight for easy handling in and out of your oven and around your kitchen
•  Save you time in preparing meals and clean up