Category Archives: Health And Fitness

September 25, 2011

The Meal Library on Your Android

Time is probably the most valuable resource we have and also the most scarce. When you don’t have enough time, the most important things in your life suffer. Lack of time causes us to make bad decisions, especially regarding our health. This is why planning ahead is so important.

When you plan ahead, you bend time to your will. You can set aside time to workout, spend time with family and friends, and prepare a healthy meal. This last is probably the one most of us fail at. When you think of cooking a healthy dinner, you probably envision some long and arduous process that you don’t have time for, especially if you’ve had a busy day. The Simple Dollar outlines a good strategy for keeping a library of easy-to-prepare meals that are not only healthy, but done in about 45 minutes or less.

Take our current Tuesday evenings. Our daughter has a dance class from 5 until 5:45 in the evening, immediately followed by our son’s soccer game from 5:45 to 6:30. Since we start our bedtime routine at 7:30, there really isn’t a lot of time to experiment and carefully consider a meal in that one hour gap in there.

For evenings like this, we end up relying on a rotation of reasonably healthy and inexpensive meals that we’re sure our family all likes and that we can prepare quite easily.

Examples of meals in our rotation include spaghetti with marinara sauce, stir fry (rice and whatever vegetables we can easily find), tuna and noodles, vegetable noodle soup, “breakfast for supper” (usually scrambled eggs, toast, and waffles), homemade pizza (with pre-made crusts from the freezer), and fajitas.

An extremely powerful strategy, but I think we can take it to the next level by adding a dash of technology. There are a number of apps for Android that provide you with a ready-made meal library. Here are two that make figuring out what to cook in a limited amount of time a no-brainer.

Enhanced by Zemanta
August 5, 2010

Ernestine Shepherd – Body Building Grandma Benches 150

At 73, Ernestine Shepherd is in better shape than most people decades her junior. Up at 3 a.m. every morning, she spends her days running, lifting weights and working out other senior citizens at the Union Memorial United Methodist Church in Baltimore. She also works as a certified personal trainer at her gym.

“I feel better than I did at 40,” she said. “I am very, very happy.”

via Don’t Mess With Ernestine Shepherd– Body Building Grandma Benches 150 – ABC News.

March 5, 2010

How Darrick Beat the Odds (and His Genes)

Topping the scale at 440 pounds, Darrick Smith was on a short road to huge health problems. His doctor told him it was in his genes, and there was nothing he could do. Guess again. With the help of Power 90®, Darrick took control of his life and won $1,000 in the Million Dollar Body Game® along the way. Watch his story and see what he looks like now.

March 4, 2010

4 Ways To Start Losing Weight Immediately

Losing weight can be a huge undertaking for some of us. Even though you might not be ready to start an exercise or diet program right now, there are still little things you can start doing right now that will start you on your way.

1. Take a Multi-vitamin

Your body is constantly changing and going through chemical reactions. It needs certain vitamins and minerals in order to complete these changes and operate efficiently. If you don’t provide these basic building blocks, you will prevent those changes that you’re looking for from happening.

2. Plan Your Meals

Most of us go through an entire day with no clue exactly when we will eat or what we will eat. This is very bad. Your metabolism dictates just how fast you will be able to gain or lose weight. It works like an internal fire. As you provide fuel for the fire in the form of food, the fire burns brighter and hotter. The trick is in how much and how often you feed the fire.

If you eat too little every day, your body may go into starvation mode, holding onto every precious calorie of fat it can. If you eat too much, your body can’t process it all and it turns into love handles and thunder thighs. The key is to eat smaller meals at regular intervals throughout the day. This provides consistent fuel so that your body can operate at optimum efficiency.

3. Drink Water

Putting water in your body is like putting oil in your car’s engine. Without oil, the engine can overheat and lock up. It’s not able to properly perform it’s functions without that vital fluid. The same goes for your body. It needs water to operate. Coffee, juice, and soda do not count. You have to drink about 8 glasses of water each day (depending on your energy level) to make sure you stay hydrated. If you get thirsty, that means it’s already too late.

4. Move Around

You might not be ready for a full-on exercise program yet. Maybe there is some physical reason that prevents you from exercising. That does not mean that you can’t be a little more physical in your day-to-day life. Stop cruising the parking lot for 20 minutes and then waiting 5 minutes for a parking spot right at the front. That’s 25 wasted minutes of your life that you will never get back. Use the opportunity to take a short walk from the back of the lot. Take the stairs when possible. If you sit all day at work, stand up for a while. Do anything you can do to break the habit of sitting on your butt all the time because those habits are only making it bigger.