Take Shape For Life

• No Comments
• Take Shape, Wellness

I had the opportunity tonight to attend a Take Shape For Life meeting to talk about the benefits and success of medifast. Take Shape is a very unique and very supportive group of people around the nation who have a heart for helping people succeed with weight loss, and succeed with life. This is a community that has such great energy to share their stories and to help all those who our over weight.

What is Take Shape For Life?

Take Shape For Life is a comprehensive program designed by Dr. Wayne S. Andersen, a Board-certifed critical care physician and a leader in nutritional intervention. An essential component of the program is Medifast Meals: healthy, nutritionally balanced meal replacements that will help your clients reach their ideal weight and keep the weight off for life. We incorporate the Medifast Meals into our innovative BeSlimTM program to teach healthy habits that will last a lifetime. The efficacy of Medifast Meals has been clinically proven in studies conducted by researchers from major medical institutions, and over 20,000 physicians have recommended Medifast Meals to their patients. Medifast, Inc. (Take Shape For Life’s parent company) is a financially sound NYSE company, featured by Forbes Magazine as number 28 in its Top 200 Small Companies. tsfl

Take Shape is a great place for those who want guided support from a health coach who helps you to your goals. This is what makes this so unique. To learn more visit tsfl.

Roadmap to Losing Weight and Staying Healthy

• No Comments
• Wellness

Debbie Johnson, author of “Think Yourself Thin: The Visualization Technique that will make you lose weight without diet or exercise” recommends the following steps to lose weight and to stay “thin.” It provides a great roadmap.

Use the unconscious to Push You forward

When you consciously control your thoughts, you can change your self-image and body. What do you want to achieve? Imagine it constantly. Pretend like a child that it is true now.

Accept and Love Yourself Just as You are Now

Write down your five best qualities and read them whenever you feel your self-image is waning. Focus on Your Key Image (Remember to Relax)

Write down your key image for thinking thin. Focus on it daily.

Repeat your Key Phrases as much as Possible. Examples of key phrases:

“I am happy; healthy, and slim!”

“People are beginning to notice my new slim body.”

“I love my new slender, graceful figure!”

“The more I think thin, the more I eat, exercise, and am thin.”

“Every single thing I eat makes my body beautiful and slim.”

Make a personal tape recording of your key image and phrase. Listen to it right before you go to sleep, in your car, or when relaxing.

Believe Only What Your Images Inside Convey to You

No matter what your outer circumstances may convey, you will become thin by believing that you are thin now. It has been proven over and over again that what you are imagining right now will be what your life gives you in the future. Do whatever it takes to convince the mind. Every cell in your body reacts to your thoughts. How do you want them to respond? Continue Reading

Research Behind Mindful Meditation

• No Comments
• Meditation

This research was done by Psychosomatic Medicine researchers found that people who did eight weeks of meditation training produced more antibodies to a flu vaccine.

OBJECTIVE: The underlying changes in biological processes that are associated with reported changes in mental and physical health in response to meditation have not been systematically explored. We performed a randomized, controlled study on the effects on brain and immune function of a well known and widely used 8-week clinical training program in mindfulness meditation applied in a work environment with healthy employees.

METHODS: We measured brain electrical activity before and immediately after, and then 4 months after an 8-week training program in mindfulness meditation. Twenty-five subjects were tested in the meditation group. A wait-list control group (N = 16) was tested at the same points in time as the mediators. At the end of the 8-week period, subjects in both groups were vaccinated with influenza vaccine.

RESULTS: We report for the first time significant increases in left-sided anterior activation, a pattern previously associated with positive affect, in the meditators compared with the non-meditators. We also found significant increases in antibody titers to influenza vaccine among subjects in the meditation compared with those in the wait-list control group. Finally, the magnitude of increase in left-sided activation predicted the magnitude of antibody titer rise to the vaccine.

CONCLUSIONS: These findings demonstrate that a short program in mindfulness meditation produces demonstrable effects on brain and immune function. These findings suggest that meditation may change brain and immune function in positive ways and underscore the need for additional research.

I am a huge believer in the power of meditation. It is probably the most valuable tool that anyone can have. However, I have noticed that meditation has received some  scrutiny from people simply for the fact that it seems way to easy to make any health benefits. It is true that it is very simple, but it is always a free way to stay healthy both physically and emotionally. All is takes is a little time and a drive to stay healthy.

Can Exercise Make You Sick?

• 2 Comments
• Wellness

This is an interesting question. I usually view exercise as a way to help fight off cold and other illness. I find that even when I get sick light walking does me good. The reason I bring this topic up is because of an article found on Prevention.com written by their health journalist, called Can Exercise Make You Sick?

The question that was asked:

Q:I walk-jog three miles five to seven days a week. I want to work up to running more and walking less, but whenever I push myself, I come down with a cold or some other bug. Does exercise compromise immunity?

A: Researchers find that regular exercise, along with a healthy diet, actually boosts the immune system and makes it better able to fend off everyday infections like colds and flu.

“Your immune cells are like cops,” explains immunity researcher David Nieman, PhD, professor of health and exercise science at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. “When you’re sedentary, they sit in their station–the lymph tissue. Within minutes after you start exercising, and for a few hours afterward, they leave the station and patrol your body.” This patrolling effect is so strong, Nieman found that when 150 people walked regularly for 12 weeks, they had half the number of colds and sore throats as people who were less active.

However, though a moderate amount of exercise is good, more is not necessarily better. For fighting infections, 30 to 60 minutes of moderate exercise is best. Strenuous exercise that lasts more than 90 minutes actually taxes immunity. Although you may not be exercising that long, you may be pushing yourself too hard, too soon. It’s also possible that your diet is not supporting your exercise needs, leaving you run-down.

First, be sure to get enough minerals like zinc, iron, copper, and selenium, as well as vitamins A, B6, C, and E, which are critical for maintaining optimum immune system function, says Nieman. “Those, and other nutrients, are necessary to produce infection-fighting antibodies,” he says.

Yet, another important point of keeping up with your exercising.

Source: Prevention.com

Pay It Forward: Kidney Donation

• No Comments
• Beautiful Soul

This is a very unique story. This story is from the early show, and highlights people who have been very generous to give strangers they didn’t know a piece of life.