Reducing Blood Pressure

Recent research underscores the importance of a healthful lifestyle including a fitness regimen for both the prevention and treatment of hypertension. Often, changes in diet and exercise habits are enough to control blood pressure without medication, especially for people with mild to moderate blood pressure levations. Sometimes diet and exercise can even reduce the need for medication, and thereby reduce side effects and lower costs.
If you are already taking medication for hypertension, it's important to discuss your lifestyle changes with your doctor, and continue taking your medication as prescribed. If lifestyle changes result in improved blood pressure, your doctor will want to work closely with you to reduce your dosage in a safe and effective manner. Following are some of the most important things you can do to prevent and control hypertension.
Reducing your sodium intake is a major factor. Many people with hypertension find that reducing sodium intake reduces blood pressure as well. Learn which foods are high in sodium, and avoid them as much as possible.
Regular exercise is the most important hypertension-prevention habit for three reasons:
First, it helps prevent and control hypertension. Formerly sedentary people who begin exercising regularly experience, on average, a drop of six or seven points in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure.
Second, active people have lower death rates than their sedentary friends, even when they have the same blood pressure. Research has shown that exercise reduces risk for cardiovascular and other disease. Exercise also helps prevent obesity, another hypertension risk factor.
Third, regular exercise provides the foundation for successful behavior change programs. Exercise makes you feel good and feel positive about yourself. Stress reduction is one of the greatest benefits of exercise. Stress not only raises blood pressure, but it makes you less inclined to stick to your positive eating plan, your
smoking cessation program or your decision to cut down on your alcohol intake.
Eating more fruits, vegetables and grains increases your intake of important minerals such as calcium and potassium, not to mention vitamins and fiber. One study found that volunteers consuming a diet high in these foods and low in fats (such as the diets created by our on-staff nutritionist) reduced systolic blood pressure by four points, and diastolic by three points. This small but significant reduction was accomplished with diet alone. Add exercise, stress management and weight loss for people who are overweight, and blood pressure reductions often improve much more.
Eating well and exercising regularly are the cornerstone.
Deprivation programs are out! Don't focus on weight loss; focus on a healthy lifestyle. A little weight loss may occur by cutting down on "junk food," eating more fruits, vegetables and grains, and increasing physical activity. Even a relatively small loss, such as 5 to 10 pounds, can reduce blood pressure. The most important goal is the development of healthful habits that stay with you for a
lifetime, so that the weight stays off. Weight cycling (repeatedly losing and regaining weight) may raise your blood pressure and be harmful to your health.
Reducing stress is another lifelong task. Take a stress management workshop, develop your sense of humor and read some good books. Develop coping techniques that increase your resistance to stress related illness. And don't forget the importance of exercise for stress reduction.
Limiting your alcohol and caffeine intake will make a profound difference in your health. You should strive to drink alcohol and caffeine in moderation, if at all.

Phytochemicals for Your Immune Health

My mom used to dress the dinner plate in full matching regalia; yellow squash nestled next to green asparagus. Red and yellow peppers tossed around the salad added spectacular color. Now dear mom knew these foods were healthy and she loved to decorate my plate with the colors of the season; but did she know that these wholesome foods contain phytochemicals?
Phytochemicals are the active substances in plants that give them their color, flavor, odor, and protection against plant diseases. Phytochemicals work as powerful antioxidants, which can increase our resistance to disease and boost immunity.
While most research focuses on the anti-carcinogen effects of phytochemicals, the results are equally important to those who just want to boost their immune system or help reverse the aging clock.
Scientists at the Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRC) rated 60 fruits and vegetables for potency of antioxidants, which stabilize cells and help fight the damaging effects of free radicals, which are molecules that weaken the immune system. Antioxidants can help keep cancer, heart disease and other degenerative conditions at bay.
The top scoring fruit in the HNRC study was blueberries followed by strawberries, prunes, black currants and boysenberries. The deeper the color, the better for you. Many of these antioxidants also have anti-inflammatory properties, and some naturally reduce blood cholesterol.
It's important to fill your diet with all the colors of the food rainbow. Eat the blues, reds, purples, oranges, yellows, and greens.
Fresh or Frozen Produce?
It's okay if you don't have time to steam your own fresh veggies, studies by the FDA and the University of Illinois show that frozen fruits and vegetables are nearly as nutritious because they can wait to be picked until they're at the peak of freshness.
Fresh produce is usually picked early, before it's ripe and fully nutritious, so that it ships well.
But if you're lucky enough to grow your own fruits or vegetables, or you can buy straight from a farm - then that's where you'll find the most nutritious fruits and vegetables!!!
What about supplements:
The value of most supplements is, at best, ineffective. The power of phytochemicals seem to be lost when removed from food. Except if you're fortunate enough to find a high quality 'greens drink'.
Click Here to get more info on our green drinks and other supplements!!!
Drinking one glass of a quality 'greens drink' supplies more than 5 servings of powerful, phytochemical rich nutrition.
Other Phyto Foods :
Phyto foods come in many varieties and for all palates. Among the most common sources are:
FRUITS: Apples, apricots, avocados, bananas, berries, cherries, citrus fruits, grapes, kiwi fruit, lemons, mangoes, melons, nectarines, oranges, papayas, peaches, pears, plums. GRAINS: Barley, cornmeal, whole grain, quinoa, brown rice, wheat germ. NUTS and SEEDS: Flaxseed (a small brown seed used in cooking), macadamia, pecans, sesame seeds, walnuts. VEGETABLES: Asparagus, beans, beets, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, carrots, celery, cauliflower, corn, eggplant, dark leafy greens and lettuces, mushrooms, onions, green and dried peas, sweet and hot peppers, white and sweet potatoes, pumpkin, soybeans, watercress, winter squash, tomatoes. And a host of others.

Take The Low Approach

Not only are rock hard abs a symbol of fitness, but strong and flexible abdominal muscles help trim your waist and end back pain. Two very important health goals of many who enter an exercise facility. It allows you to move from side to side with stability and control. Men and women want to walk on the beach and show off all their hard work by exposing their abs. From what has been seen in gym and health facilities, it is most worked on muscle group or it is the most neglected. What category do you end up falling into? There are many ways in which you can work you abdominal muscles. There is scientific sequence to effectively shaping and creating great abs.
Most people are stronger in their upper to middle abdominals compared to their lower abdominal muscles. It is recommended that you work your lower abs first since you are freshest and have the most energy to get the most out of your stomach. The abdominal muscles react and provide optimal results visually when performed to failure. Failure occurs when the muscle is thoroughly exhausted and the exercise can no longer be executed. This means you can not do one more painful repetition. Your mid-section should be worked in this manner all the time.
Some examples for lower abs are as follows:
The reverse crunch (using the slant board) - with your hand holding the bars and your legs straight on the floor, raise your knees to your face, while bending your knees, until the fetal position. Then slowly drop your rear end until you touch the board and repeat the exercise.
Leg lifts (performed on the Roman Chair) - Start with your back on the back support and lift your knees/legs to its highest point. Feet should not be allowed to swing behind your rear end at its lowest point for safety and momentum purposes.
Hanging leg raises (performed on the cable machines) - Start by hanging from the middle pull up bar on the cable machines. The hanging leg raise is probably the most result producing stomach exercise since it is generated from the lower abs and then incorporated the upper abs at its peak. It begins by having your feet lift over and above your waist until it reached approximately where your hands are holding on. Remember to keep you body from swinging back and forth. This will cause you to use more stomach muscles and less momentum.
Then proceed to your upper/middle abs to get that desired burn.
The Ab Roller, which is great for upper abdominals and obliques, is great to start with since it promotes safety and immediate results. Exercises utilizing the ball and floor mats are great ways to end a stomach workout. The utility ball allows for maximum stretching to hit all areas of the mid-section.
Since your stomach is considered your smallest muscle, you are able - and recommended to - train them up to 6 days per week. A cardiovascular work out which consist of constant aerobic activity which last for more than 30 minutes at your 80% target heart rate is extremely beneficial and necessary to achieve that ever desired six pack.
Great abs are only obtained through hard work, perseverance and proper form. They are the central point in which your motion begins and ends. In the end, great abs will give you the needed support for your workout and your life.

Proper Elimination

When life began for us, our system was clean and efficient in the way that it processed what we ate. As we entered our teens and our hormones started kicking in, the way that our digestive system reacted to the foods we consumed changed. As we pass our teens and enter into adulthood our enzyme production changes. And as we enter every stage of life the way that our body reacts to food changes. Doesn't it make sense that our eating habits should also change. Has it? If you're like 99% of Americans, the answers is, no.
You see, each time our body goes through a change, no matter how big of small, the consistency and the concentration of enzymes in our systems also change. Meaning that we must either change the way that we eat, or continuously clean out our digestive tracts. The latter is much easier! Changing the way that we eat would entail: first monitoring our cyclical tendencies, to show when we needed to change, and then testing out how different foods affected us. By the time that we tested out all of the foods thoroughly enough, our body's would most likely have entered into another stage, and it would be time to start the whole process over again. Rather than going through all that, you could easily keep your digestive system clean by fasting once per week.
When the human body is given the wrong foods on a regular basis it tends to build up matter on the walls of it's colon and lower bowels. If this matter is allowed to remain - it ferments. This fermentation causes smells to emanate either from the skin or the mouth. This matter is responsible for something even worse than fermentation, it is the main cause of any blockage in the bowels. This blockage can, at it's worst case, cause illness and eventually death.
Throughout the years, this matter forms layers which are virtually glued to the walls of your digestive tract, the longer they are left alone, the higher up they can venture. Usually starting within your colon and traveling up your lower bowels. The real danger here. There is a protective valve that is responsible for only allowing substances to pass down from your digestive tract into your elimination tract. When this matter eventually reaches this valve, it will hinder it's performance, allowing this poisonous, fermenting matter up into your digestive system. Which will process it like it were a food and unfortunately assimilate it into pieces so small that they will enter your blood stream an! d cause some type of toxic poisoning.
But before this whole process begins, our body's have a sort of warning mechanism that will signal. The warning is usually, yes you guessed it, constipation. Something that we have all experienced at one time or another. Although constipation is always bad, getting constipated does not always mean that we are in danger of toxic poisoning. People who are constantly constipated or plagued with frequent spurts of constipation are the ones that this is aimed at.
Cleaning out the entire elimination tract and re-energizing the entire digestive tract once per week is recommended for everyone. This process will scrape away at the built up matter and eventually flush all of it out, allowing your entire system a chance to really function the way that it was meant to. The benefits that you can expect from this are many-fold, including: better sleeping patterns, stronger concentration and focus, much less stress, stronger muscle contractions, better absorption of nutrients into your muscles organs and bones, and much more energy.

The Best Results ALWAYS Occur 1 Step Past

I'm not sure about you guys, but getting to the gym is sometimes a pain in the butt, but we all have to do some things we don't want to do, right...: }

At the gym I was doing bicep exercises and my goal was
12 reps each set.

Each set I did, I tried to increase the weight and make it a bit tougher.

It got much tougher.

So much, that by the 8th rep, I wanted to 'throw in the towel'...but I didn't!!!

I wanted to stop so badly, but I didn't.

What I did instead was give just 5% more effort and I didn't stop at 12 reps, I went to 15.
You see, we need to be reminded that the MAGIC doesn't happen on the 1st mile, it happens when you go the EXTRA mile for yourself and for others.

Anybody who knows anything about weight training or dieting will tell you that you get most of your results from those last 2-3 reps you don't want to do, or from those last few weeks that you really don't want to diet.

But here's the catch.

Most people quit on themselves and their dreams, right when it gets tough.

Unfortunately, they then never get to taste the MAGIC that could have taken place for them. That same magic that could have transformed their body from ordinary to extraordinary.

And that TASTE is so sweet, it really is unfortunate that more people don't give themselves the gift of going the extra mile, so they too can enjoy living life in the body of their dreams.

(Shameless plug: Some of the best feedback I get from my 'Living Health - Weight Loss Audio Program', is that it shows you how to easily go that extra 5% and win.)

I've said it over and over again, but I'll repeat it here one more time...you don't have to be 50% or 100% better then everyone else when you diet or exercise.

5% is it.

Yes, that's it.

Persist past your desire to stop dieting or exercising. Do a little bit more today.

Do one more rep.

Workout 15 minutes longer.

Drink one more glass of plain, fresh water.

Eat one more large bowel of salad (without a lot of dressing).

And encourage one more person to exercise with you.

Are YOU ready to give 5% more today?

I can't tell for sure, but I really feel that you are ready.

Am I right?

Make your move.

P.S. In the last 30 days, over 1,012 individuals have used my Living Health Audio Program to quickly and easily add that 5% - 500% extra motivation into your life. Would you like to be next?

A Basic Cleanse To Enhance Your Health & Metabolism

Skipping this step will make the weight loss/fat loss process far harder, and it will create a destiny for you of achieving only temporary results.

There are 3 initial steps to take for your cleanse to be most effective:

1st...Decide how long you want your cleanse to last. I usually recommend to my personal clients that their cleanse last no less than 1 full day and no longer than 7-10 days. For example, if they have lived a life of eating fast food and little or no physical activity, then their cleanse should last closer to the 7-10 day mark. But if they have lived a healthy! life, eating lots of fresh raw vegetables, exercising regularly, and possibly even doing another type of cleanse every now and then...then you need only follow this cleanse 1 or 2 days in a row (but most of my clients - even those who come to me in excellent condition, usually choose to stay on the cleanse longer than just 1 - 2 days...the average is 3 - 5 days initially, then once a month thereafter they can do a mini cleanse lasting 1 - 2 days).

2nd...Decide what you're going to consume on the cleanse (this is a great time to get all the junk food cleaned out of your kitchen - give it away, throw it away, just get rid of it - but don't get rid of it by eating it yourself!!!). After you've cleaned out your kitchen, you should stock it with healthy foods, and the only healthy foods you'll be consuming on your cleanse are plain, fresh, clean water (preferably 'distilled' or 'purified' water), vegetable juices, and possibly some decaffeinated herbal tea (if you desire it).
The term "vegetable juice", when used here, refers ONLY to juices that you juice yourself. So get yourself a vegetable juicer and a wide variety of fresh, raw, preferably organic vegetables. Then 2 or 3 times per day juice enough vegetables to fill a glass and drink it down (some people, including diabetics, find it beneficial to water down their juice with 50% water - this simply dilutes the sugar found in some vegetables).

You should add a small pinch of cayenne pepper to a few of your drinks throughout the day - this strengthens your blood, increases circulation, improves the assimilation of nutrients from the vegetable juices into your body, and helps your bowels eliminate the built up waste from your system (which gets rid of any constipation).

3rd...Do some light cardiovascular exercise like walking or bike riding for 20 - 30 minutes each day of your cleanse. Avoid any heavy physical exertion if possible - your goal is to relax and let your system rebuild and repair itself during your cleanse. Finally, rent a funny movie and laugh (a lot). When you have a good laugh, your body secretes chemicals that aid in digestion and promote good metabolic health.
Review this or any other dietary or lifestyle changes with your physician first.

How to Develop the Attitude

During a catalogue search at my local library, I came
across this title: "Fitness without Exercise - The
Scientifically Proven Strategy for Achieving Maximum Health
with Minimum Effort." This book by Bryant Stamford and
Porter Shimer really misses the point. After all, fitness
is more of an attitude than a destination.
I found another title for a book that is a better concept
and is one with which I completely agree. "Walking: the
Pleasure Exercise," a book by Mort Malkin. Actually,
during my research at the library, more than 20 per cent of
the items had *walking* in their titles when I used
*fitness* as the search-word. Makes sense, doesn't it?
Walking is naturally one of the best places to start
creating a Fitness Attitude. For one thing, it gets you
outdoors, and that's good for the fitness of your head! In
addition, it uses all the large muscles in your body, it's
low-impact, and it doesn't require any special equipment.
It is something you are already expert at doing, and your
body is perfectly designed for it. Hooray! You've got an
awesome place to begin on your way to having a Fitness
Attitude: Go for a walk every day.
Now, I'm going to make a confession. Even though I place a
high value on health and nutrition and fitness in general,
I sometimes have to really make an effort to get out the
door with my walking shoes on. Today, for example, it was
rainy and cold. I had a back-log of emails to answer, and
had eaten a heavy lunch. It would have been really easy to
make a very good case for staying indoors by the woodstove
with my computer screen glowing away.
At a time like this, momentum helps. I feel weird when I
have to miss my daily walk because over time it's become a
part of my life. It easier to walk consistently when you
make it a routine, or you have a ritual to help you get out
the door. A routine will also to carry you along. Decide
on a length of time for your walk, rather than setting a
distance. Then, go! Some routes will become your
standards, and then you won't have to plan - which is one
of the benefits of a routine. Used appropriately, routines
free your thoughts, so you can contemplate topics more
interesting than whether to make a right or left turn at
the corner.
Good for you, if you use a treadmill, gym, or other
walking strategy such as mall walks. Still, if you can
possibly make arrangements, spend at least some of your
walking time outside. Time in the open air is part of
fitness as an attitude.
Which brings up the question of food as it relates to the
attitude of fitness. Generally, when you are eating foods
that have a good natural basis, (like salads that aren't
drowning in some oily vinegar dressing, or a vegetable stir-
fry that isn't heavily glazed with high-sugar sauce), you
don't crave garbage non-foods like my personal favorite:
red licorice. Still, the packaging of 'snack foods' and
the ease and portability they afford in our frenetically
paced culture means that sometimes, you're going to eat
junk. Once you've established your Fitness Attitude,
though, processed 'foods' stop being a staple in your diet,
and that's a better fit.
As you put attention on fitness, your life will soon
include the pleasure of walking daily and a natural hunger
for whole foods that are nourishing to you. A Fitness
Attitude isn't complicated, and you'll feel better. You
simply will.