Category Archives: Fitness

Here's a Meditation App You'll Actually Use

Source: http://greatist.com/live/meditation-studio-app?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_http–greatistcom-

Meditation Studio App Meditation Studio App

Most of us aren’t so great at being alone with our thoughts. What’s the first thing you do when you’re waiting for a friend at the bar? Grab your phone and start scrolling through Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, email, the news—anything to keep yourself occupied.

We get it, it’s hard to curb that knee-jerk reaction to whip out your phone. But maybe you don’t have to. We downloaded the Meditation Studio app and try to use it once a day, in place of our usual mindless scrolling. After just a few days, we felt less stressed and even a little more creative.

The app (available on iOS devices) includes more than 160 guided meditations categorized by issue, like stress, sleep, confidence, and compassion. Most run less than 10 minutes, so they’re doable during a lunch break or while waiting at the doctor’s office (when we need zen most). We love that the app is made for experienced meditators and newbies alike—there’s a meditation essentials course that’s an awesome introduction for people new to the practice. And we actually stuck with meditating, thanks to the scheduling feature, which syncs with your phone’s calendar and lets you set reminders. It’s probably the most worthwhile $2.99 we’ve ever spent in the a…

Awesome Victoria’s Secret Sport Deal – Because Cute Workout Clothes Make Working Out More Fun (Proven Fact)

Source: http://www.fannetasticfood.com/2016/01/07/awesome-victorias-secret-sport-deal-because-cute-workout-clothes-make-working-out-more-fun-proven-fact/

Thank you to Victoria’s Secret for sponsoring this post! While this was a sponsored opportunity from Victoria’s Secret all content and opinions expressed here are my own.

Hi friends! Remember how I mentioned earlier this week that I was going to share an amazing deal from Victoria’s Secret Sport? Well, get pumped, because here it is – and it’s AWESOME.

victorias secret sport review

From today (January 7) until January 10, 2016, if you purchase a sports bra on Victoria Secret’s website you will get a FREE sport bottom with your purchase when you use the code “GIFTSPORT” at check out. (Note: only 1 free sport bottom per customer, so make it good.)

Yes, you read that correctly: buy any sports bra (except those on clearance) and get a free beautiful pair of workout bottoms, like the Knockout Crop in Cold Mountain Glow in the Dark pictured above, or the Knockout Tight in Limited Edition Icelandic Scenic print pictured below.

<img style="float: none;padding-top: 0px;padding-left: 0px;margin: 0px auto;padding-right: 0px;border-width: 0px" title="victorias secret sport" src="http://www.fannetasticfood.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/IMG_9075_…

We Eat Too Much Sodium Because Companies Keep Dumping It In Our Food

Source: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/01/07/462198458/we-eat-too-much-sodium-because-companies-keep-dumping-it-in-our-food?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=thesalt

Extra-high amounts of sodium can be hidden in savory snacks like popcorn served at movie theaters and other concession stands.

Extra-high amounts of sodium can be hidden in savory snacks like popcorn served at movie theaters and other concession stands.

Scott Olson/Getty Images

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is beating the drum again: We’re consuming too much sodium and it’s a reason we have such high rates of hypertension and cardiovascular disease.

Not me, you say? Well, chances are, yes, you.

An analysis appearing in this week’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly report reveals that 89 percent of U.S. adults were consuming more than the recommended 2,300 milligrams of sodium a day in the years 2009-2012, according to National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data, or NHANES.

<img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2016/01/06/dietary-guidelines_larger_sq-062a260d2d71b5f95fd65662f0e63e2da7671270-s100.jpg" class="img100" title="Eat This, Not That: The U.S. government's latest Dietary Guidelines call …

The Sound of Life

Source: http://www.theminimalists.com/sound/

By Joshua Fields Millburn · Follow: Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram

Whether walking, working, or driving the Montana countryside, my life is often scored by music. I enjoy silence immensely, but when sustained quiet isn’t enough, I turn to euphony. From singer-songwriter and rock ‘n’ roll to hip-hop, electric pop, and classical, there’s a suitable soundscape for almost every moment.

Over the past few years I’ve catalogued and shared my favorite new albums, and because so many people have asked, I’ve done it again this year. Enjoy!

The fifteen best albums of 2015:
JFM’s Favorite Albums 2015

Previous years:
2014
2013
2012
2011

P.S. Right now I’m listening to Aquilo’s beautiful six-song EP, Painting Pictures of War, on repeat. Maybe one day they’ll release a full album.

Subscribe to The Minimalists via email.

The Truth About How to Become a Morning Person

Source: http://www.sonima.com/meditation/become-a-morning-person/

The ringing of an alarm clock can be a dreadful sound, aggressively yanking people out of a deep sleep. Some folks, however, are spared the jarring noise. The morning person naturally wakes up feeling refreshed, alert, and ready to start the day. It’s a lifestyle preference, many believe, but science says otherwise. Whether or not you can become a morning person has little to do with choice and a lot to do with your DNA, or more specifically, your chronotype.

“It’s not too long ago that the chronotype was a very vague concept. It basically was how you felt about yourself—whether you felt you were a morning person or an evening person,” says Nick Littlehales, advisor on sleep to several corporations and professional sports teams and founder of SportSleepCoach.com.

“But it’s now proven genetically that there is a certain set of the population that is two to three hours behind the rest.”

One of the leading scientists examining chronotypes is Till Roenneberg, Ph.D., of Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany. In the mid-2000s, he and his staff examined the sleep-wake times of more than 55,000 people. They found within that group, small sets of people followed pretty extreme schedules—night owls preferred to go to bed as late as 5 a.m., which is about the same time that very early wakers (described as larks) get up. The majority of people went to sleep sometime between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m., w…

New Dietary Guidelines Crack Down On Sugar. But Red Meat Gets A Pass

Source: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/01/07/462160303/new-dietary-guidelines-crack-down-on-sugar-but-red-meat-gets-a-pass?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=thesalt

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Transcript

Eat This, Not That: The U.S. government's latest Dietary Guidelines call on Americans to eat more vegetables and fruits, more seafood and whole grains, and to cool it on foods high in sugar, refined grains, sodium and saturated fats.

Eat This, Not That: The U.S. government’s l…

The 2015 Dietary Guidelines, at long last

Source: http://www.foodpolitics.com/2016/01/the-2015-dietary-guidelines-at-long-last/

The 2015 Dietary Guidelines are out.

Picture1

They are now online in a version that takes up dozens of screens with annoying drop-down boxes.  It’s hard to navigate, and if it’s searchable, I can’t figure out how (OK, it’s searchable but doesn’t work all that well).

First the good news.  These Dietary Guidelines—for the first time—attempt to focus on foods and dietary patterns:

Previous editions of the Dietary Guidelines focused primarily on individual dietary components such as food groups and nutrients. However, people do not eat food groups and nutrients in isolation but rather in combination, and the totality of the diet forms an overall eating pattern.

They almost succeed in this mission.  The Guidelines say:

Follow a healthy eating pattern across the lifespan [Pattern].
Focus on variety, nutrient density, and amount [Pattern].
Limit calories from added sugars and saturated fats and reduce sodium intake [Oops: Nutrients].
Shift to healthier food and beverage choices [Pattern].
Support healthy eating patterns for all [Pattern].

A healthy eating pattern, they say:

Includes foods from various groups [Pattern].
Limits saturated fats, trans fats, added sugars, and sodium [Oops: Nutrients].

As for (Oops) Nutrients:

FLAWED: The Tom Brady and Giselle Bündchen Diet Plan

Source: http://www.bornfitness.com/flawed-the-tom-brady-and-giselle-bundchen-diet/

You don’t need me to tell you there’s an overwhelming amount of bad fitness and nutrition information. But you would probably prefer a simpler way to reduce the confusion, and know what to believe and what’s not worth your time.

That’s what’s delivered for free through The Born Reality, an insider digital magazine where we make sense of the nonsense.

Framing all carbohydrates – essentially everything from lentils, apples, and broccoli to muffins, Swedish Fish, and soda – as unhealthy is nutritionally inaccurate.

This is just a sample of what’s typically sent, where Born Fitness takes an inside look at Tom Brady and Giselle Bündchen’s diet, based on this article from The Boston Globe.

We all know that Tom Brady is an incredible quarterback and Giselle is beautiful, but that doesn’t mean you should follow their nutrition plan. Despite their star power, are their chef’s recommendations worth your time?

To answer that question, I reviewed his advice with nutritionist Andy Bellatti, MS, RD.

So just what are Tom and Giselle doing right and wrong? Read on to find out how Bellatti translates the dietary suggestions into advice you can use and mistakes you can avoid.

The Tom Brady Diet: An Inside Look

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady made nutrition headlines late last year over his harsh criticism of Frosted Flakes and Coca-Cola. But Tom is obviously not a nutritionist, so his opin…

The ‘Two Exercise’ Secret for Shedding Fat

Here is a simple fat burning tip you can use right now as a secret for shedding fat. This works especially well for most people because it’s a radical departure from what you’ve been doing.

One of the many problems with traditional low intensity long duration cardio is that of
diminishing returns. As your body becomes more efficient, you will begin to burn fewer calories for the same workout and your results will eventually come to a grinding halt. Many people either get frustrated and quit, or they go in the wrong direction by thinking they need to make their workouts longer.

Making a long workout even longer is NOT the way to get results! Putting more work into the same amount of workout time or the same amount of work into less time is a much more effective approach. Not to mention, who has hours and hours a day to train? Lottery winners, maybe! That’s about it! And not a good secret for shedding fat.

Secret for shedding fat

You should do these two particular exercises – squats and deadlifts.

Both of these exercises are two of the best fat burning and muscle building exercises around. They work a lot of muscle at one time, they get your entire body moving, they have a cardio benefit when done for higher reps, and they can boost your metabolism for some serious calorie burning AFTER the workout!

And if you do them the right way, you also get a surge in the powerful fat burning hormone, growth hormone, which melts away body fat like butter! Oh yeah!

For your next back workout, give this a try. Do ONLY the deadlift.

Do the deadlift for ONE set.

Here’s the best part of this secret for shedding fat. Don’t go down to the floor on your deadlifts. Just lower the bar a few inches below your kneecaps. In fact, you could start the bar off the ground in a power rack if you want.

Now, do 40 reps. Yes, seriously. You won’t believe what this feels like compared to your normal back workout. And if you don’t know exactly what muscles the deadlifts hit, you will after this.

You’ll feel it in your shoulders, traps, upper back, lower back, hamstrings, arms, butt (here that, ladies?), you name it.

And if you don’t think you can get cardio benefits from weight training, you’ll change your mind.

Try doing ONLY this for your back workout for 4 to 8 weeks and see what happens.

Oh, and if you feel like you have to rest, do so at the top of a rep, don’t put the bar down.

This is really TOUGH. And it works for getting lean. It’s for you, too, ladies! Don’t shy away from intense workouts because you’re afraid of getting bulky. It’s not going to happen.


Are you interested in more fitness info? Check out my free report:

“10 FITNESS HACKS YOU NEED TO KNOW”

The Upside of Adversity: 6 Lessons from Thriving with Chronic Illness

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tinybuddha/~3/0xB6L5tGN8g/

Happy Free Man

“If you’re not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you’re determined to learn, no one can stop you.” ~Unknown

I vividly remember the day that I realized something was seriously wrong inside my body.

It was a Friday night. I was out with some friends after work when I suddenly started slurring my speech.

I’d been drinking soda water all evening.

I excused myself to go to the bathroom. I remember trying to stem the rising feeling of panic, to convince myself that everything was okay.

As I stared at my reflection in the mirror, noticing a slight droop to my eyelids, I remember thinking, “I’m having a stroke.” It was an idea I quickly dismissed, stupidly believing such a thing wasn’t possible for someone so young.

It all went downhill from there.

To make a long story short, within three days I went from being a carefree twenty-four-year-old to a critically ill twenty-four-year-old.

Diagnosed with a life-threatening case of Guillain-Barré Syndrome, an autoimmune system disorder that attacks the peripheral nervous system, I was hooked up to machines in the hospital’s critical care unit, my body completely paralyzed and systematically shutting down.

That was ten years ago.

My life has been irrevocably chan…