When Life Slows You Down… You Better Listen

Yes, I know I’m suppose to be writing reviews on fitness products…but just hold your horses…the next one is coming soon! But, until then I wanted to share with you the role of mental and spiritual health in your overall well being. Of course, I have come to this realization from my own experience. I am a holistic health advocate and can teach the six dimensions of health with my eyes closed and hands tied behind my back…but this one day…June 8, 2010 made me realize just how important a holistic view of health is.

I have been on the go every weekend since April 2, 2010…and there are no signs of it slacking up until mid-July! My poor car is racking up the highway mileage! In addition I work full-time and I train at a gym 1-2 days out of the week. This has become my life for the past few months…with no time for ME! I haven’t even taken the time cook me a nice dinner; it’s been PB&J sandwiches (on a hamburger bun) or leftovers from lunch every night. So yes, this schedule has been hectic and I have felt my body growing weary, but each week I find myself living by the phrase “If I just make it through this week I’ll be ok.” From grant writing at work to traveling home to see every aspect of by baby sister’s senior year festivities to being a bridesmaid for my sorority sister…you would think I had an “S” stamped on my chest for “SUPERWOMAN.” Well on yesterday, June 8, 2010 my body…and my car said “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.”

Last night, as I took my (what seemed to be normal) drive home from the gym I had a car accident…no it wasn’t bad at all and no one was hurt (Thank God). After all the legalities and my sit on the bathroom floor crying session, a light from the Heavens above shone on me and it all became clear “SLOW DOWN…before you go insane!” At that point it was clear how mental and spiritual health are major components of the whole concept of health. I firmly believe that spiritual and mental health are the core components in which all other components (social, physical, emotional, etc) revolve around. These are the components that keep an individual grounded and provide the leverage for success in all other areas. For me, it’s safe to say that, lately, I have been healthy in all other aspects of life…except my mental and spiritual. Therefore, I have experienced a small imbalance in my overall well being.

Now, my little story may be small in comparison to someone else’s, but that’s what it took for me to open my eyes. While your core dimensions of health may be different from mine, it is important to realize that ALL dimensions work together. Remember that to achieve optimum well being you must find YOUR balance…and be sure that your spiritual and mental health don’t get the short end of the stick.

This little whirlwind of events gave me the desire to encourage you to take care of yourself spiritually and mentally…because if you don’t…WHO WILL??


Lastly, a pic of my baby...or in the words of one of my BFF's...my ALTIMA09.
After only 6 months I guess you can say she's broken in now :(

O HOW I LOVE MY SWEET TEA!

I ran across this article on yahoo just a second ago and just had to share it! Its really brings home the fact that making small dietary changes can contribute to weight loss. The first thing that caught my attention was my beloved sweet tea. Now, many of my friends and family know that I am a sucker for sweet tea. I have been struggling for about 2-3 months trying to ween myself off of it. But, the good news is…I have been successful at it! I went from one cup a day to more like one cup a week! I even resist ordering it at restaurants (sometimes). I say all of that about my mini addiction to give myself (and you too) a little boost to take it easy on the drinks because all of the sugar packed in them is helping you pack on the pounds. As one of my favorite sayings goes (with a little ad lib)… “I love food too much to drink up all of my calories!”

Now after all that jibberish…I hope you enjoy the article!

SIP YOUR WAY TO A FLAT BELLY!
http://health.yahoo.net/experts/eatthis/sip-your-way-flat-belly

There is a potion that magically strips away pounds from your body, improves your overall health, lengthens your life, makes you more attractive to the opposite sex, and keeps you lean forever. Even better, you can have as much of this magic weight-loss potion as you want, for free, and start stripping away pounds—perhaps even several dozen pounds this year alone—without exercise, without dieting, without visiting the set of Nip/Tuck.

What is this magical elixir? It’s water.

Really? Really. You don't even need to mix in that fancy fat-burning stuff from the vitamin store. In fact, the less you supplement your food and beverage intake, the more weight you’ll lose (and the more money you’ll save). Keep reading this five-point plan from the new book Drink This, Not That! and begin your no diet weight-loss goals today. You'll sip your way to a flat belly in record time--and keep it well beyond summer.

Step 1: Swear Off the Soda and Iced Tea
(Annual Weight Loss: 18 Pounds!)

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey measured where most of our calories come from. Researchers broke up America’s food intake into 143 different categories and discovered, to their horror, that the category making up the largest percentage of our calorie intake—7.1 percent, to be exact—was not a food at all. It was soda. (Vegetables, on the other hand, accounted for only 6.5 percent of our intake. Chicken and fish together only added up to 5.7 percent.)
To put that into perspective, if you ate an average of 2,500 calories a day, and you cut 7 percent of your calories, you’d automatically drop down to 2,325, a difference that would save you 1.5 pounds per month. You could be 9 pounds lighter in 6 months by going cold-turkey today! Another thing to remember: You're far better off eating your vitamins than drinking them


Step 2: Drink 8 Cups of Water Every Day
(Annual Weight Loss: 26 Pounds!)

Yes, the magic elixir really does have amazing powers. In one study, a group of 173 overweight women were put through diet and nutrition training using mainstream diet programs. Researchers then followed them for 10 months, with dietary and body composition being recorded up to 12 months after the classes. All women in the program lost weight, but those drinking more water lost more weight. Drinking more than 1 liter of water per day (nearly 4½ cups) was associated with an extra 5.07 pounds lost in 12 months.

And researchers from the University of Utah found that people who drink the most water have higher metabolisms. In a study, subjects drank 4, 8, or 12 cups of water each day. Those who drank at least 8 cups reported better concentration and higher energy levels, and tests showed that they were burning more calories than the 4-cups-a-day group.


Step 3: Enjoy One, Two, or Even Three Yogurt-Based Smoothies a Day
(Annual Weight Loss: 10 Pounds!)

I love the sound of a cranking blender. But a combination of ice, dairy, and fruit does more than just make a teeth-rattling cacophony in your kitchen. It also helps strip pounds from your body.

There are three simple reasons why: Smoothies take little time to make (so you can quash your hunger pangs quickly), they’re packed with nutrition (especially if you start with Greek yogurt and add berries, whey protein, and some flax), and their thickness takes up a lot of space in your stomach, crowding out the Doritos. In fact, researchers at Purdue University found that people stayed fuller longer when they drank thick drinks than when they drank thin ones, and a study at Penn State found that people who drank yogurt shakes that had been blended until they doubled in volume ate 96 fewer calories a day than those consuming thinner drinks.


Step 4: Avoid Juice Drinks
(Annual Weight Loss: 19 Pounds!)

Imagine a world in which we called products what they really were: Hungry Man Dinners would be called Lonely Man Dinners. ESPN would be called the Fat Nerds Yap about Jocks Channel. And SunnyD would be called Obesi-D because there’s nothing sunny about a drink marketed to kids that looks and tastes like juice, but is 95 percent water and corn syrup.

While even 100 percent juice has its problems, juice drinks and their ilk are the worse offenders. One 16-ounce bottle of SunnyD Smooth packs a whopping 180 straight-up empty calories and 40 grams of sugar. If you drink one a day, cut it out. You’ll lose 19 pounds in a year! And SunnyD is just the beginning.



Step 5: Drink Coffee, Not Coffee Drinks
(Annual Weight Loss: 18 Pounds!)

Researchers studied coffee habits in New York and found that two-thirds of Starbucks’ customers opted for blended coffee drinks over regular brewed coffee or tea. The average caloric impact of the blended drinks was 239 calories. The regular coffee or tea, by comparison, was only 63 calories after factoring in added cream and sugar. So even if you like your coffee sweet and light, you can strip away 176 calories every day, just by making this one swap.

Now, budding mathematicians among you may notice that all this adds up to a whopping 91 pounds lost in a single year. This is not good news if you weigh 125. (However, travel just got a lot cheaper because now you can mail yourself all over the world.) Fact is, unless you're currently engaging in all of the bad habits above, you probably don't have 91 pounds to lose.
But this five-point plan illustrates how extraordinarily easy it is to shed extra weight—a lot of weight—just by watching what we drink. And that, my friends, is something worth raising a glass to.

YOU be the Judge

Sometimes I find myself lying awake in the wee hours of the morning watching the most random stuff on television…as in infomercials. I realize they make all this exercise equipment look so enticing…to the point where we think “this is our beach body savior.” So what do we do? We call the 1-800 numbers because we only have about 15 minutes to purchase before the price skyrockets (go figure). I have people come up to me all the time asking “what do you think about this or that…” In my opinion, nothing worth having is going to come easy, so I’m a fan of good fashioned hard work. So…with all of this being said I put on my little thinking cap and tried to figure out how I can 1. Help people with these questions and 2. Save them a truck load of money at the same time. That’s when my little light bulb clicked on! So my plan is to give you my review and opinion of some of these “as seen on TV” or “Get a beach body in two days” items. My first victim: Shaun T’s Hip Hop Abs.



Now I love me some workout videos that I can do on a “lazy” day and if it involves dancing…I’m pretty much SOLD! I’ve been doing Hip Hop Abs for about 2 years now and overall I will say that it is a good investment. But, since I’m not being paid by Shaun T to market this product, I must give you MY pros and cons.

•Pros:
o Short: 20 minute exercise. This gives you something to do on those days when you just can’t make yourself go to the gym, but you NEED some type of exercise.
o Variety: There are several different DVD’s that you can purchase for all of your fitness needs. My personal favorite is the Hips, Buns and Thighs
o FUN: this lets you dance while exercising at the same time. The DVD's even have a section that will teach you a whole hip hop dance!
o Colorful: As a female I like things that are aesthetically pleasing and Hip Hop Abs is full of color, from the music to the color of the room, right down to the clothes the people have on.
•Cons:
o Short: despite what the advertisements say, you CAN NOT (solely) do these videos everyday and achieve maximum results.
o Price: If you buy all of the DVDs at once it can be kind of pricey (around 60 bucks)
o If you do not like to dance then this is not something you will like.

So, as you can see, in my opinion, hip hop abs is a pretty good investment…if you want a quick workout. Check out more about Hip Hop Abs at

http://www.extremebodyworkout.com/hiphopabs-products/hiphopabs.php

Enjoy and YOUR opinions are welcome!

We Fall Down…But We Get Up

IWhewww! It’s been months since I’ve been on here! But…I’m back now!!

In life we all have times where we fall off, backslide, plateau…or whatever you choose to call it. But, once we realize we have reached the point where there is no progress we begin to reevaluate…figure out where we went wrong and how we can change it for the better. Sometimes its as easy as picking back up where we started and following through with our initial plan, while sometimes its as hard as starting a new plan from scratch. Well, healthy living is a perfect example of how “We Fall Down,” but often times getting back up can be the tricky part. Just ask me…I’m an example.

Believe it or not, there are times when I fall off of my routine, and when I do…trust me… I STRUGGLE to get back on track. Just recently, my work schedule changed, increasing my lunch from 30 mins to an hour and I come in at 8 instead of 7. Adjusting to this new schedule has been a struggle…and it has been down hill since I started! With my hour lunch, I have eaten out probably EVERYDAY since this started, while before I was cooking and bringing my lunch. I have also recently started waking up at 5am going to the gym to workout. Well…this is also a struggle; I have only mastered a whopping 3 times per week…max! It has only been by the Grace of God that I haven’t gained one pound on this TERRIBLE routine that has no structure. This week I had to take a step back and reevaluate. My question to myself has been “How can I help people lead healthier lives if I’m not practicing what I preach?” Hmmm…..so now is my time to get back UP! I shall finish this bag of Doritos and glass of sweet tea that I’m snacking on now, eat a nice Mother’s Day Dinner and pick back up on Monday, May 10, 2010 at 5:00am!

I say all of this to say. YES, we all have shortcomings, we all have times when we JUST DON’T WANT TO EXERCISE, or when we would rather have a greasy burger than a salad. But, the beauty of it is…you can ALWAYS get back on track. All it takes is a little hard work and determination. I always stress to people healthy living is a state of mind and unless your mind is made up to make that change…you will not be successful. So, if you happen to fall short, backslide or hit a plateau…DON’T get discouraged, dust yourself off and get back up, renew your commitment and get back on the healthy path!

As the song says... “We fall down, but we get up” it’s never too late to get back up and start anew!

Gearing Up for the New Year!

Many of you may or may not know that I write for the Community Newsflash each month. Since the New Year is fast approaching, I decided to focus on helping my readers set attainable New Years Resolutions. I decided to post the article because so many of us have a hard time keeping our New Year's Resolutions. ENJOY!

GEARING UP FOR THE NEW YEAR

It’s that time again! Its time to make that New Years Resolution and map out a plan of how to accomplish that goal before the next year rolls around. Most of our New Years Resolutions revolve around losing that holiday weight or becoming more financially stable. As I have said before, I’m neither an accountant nor a financial advisor, therefore I will focus on helping you set and achieve your health relates goals. In doing so I would like to pose a challenge for YOU to add to your resolution!

CHALLENGE: Each month, I get many compliments on the articles from: “I love the articles” to “please keep writing those articles they are so helpful.” My question to you is: can you honestly say that you are taking heed to the tips that I am providing each month? If not, as part of your New Year’s Resolution I ask that as you read the articles each month please try to take at least one thing from them and apply it to your life. Is that too much to ask?


A New Year’s resolution can be defined as a commitment that an individual makes to a project or the reforming of a habit. It is often a lifestyle change that is generally interpreted as beneficial. One research showed that 52% of participants in a New Year’s Resolution study were confident that they would be successful with their goal, while only 12% of those actually achieved the goal. This just shows how we talk a good game, but often let other factors deter us from our goals.

As we will be ringing in the New Year in less than a month I ask that you take some time to really think out your resolutions and try to make them in a way that will:
1. Challenge you to achieve a goal
2. Be attainable: setting unattainable goals plays a major role in why people do not stick to their resolutions.
3. Be beneficial to your short term and long term health status.
It is important that you are clear, concise and specific when making your New Year’s Resolution. I also encourage you to put it on paper and stick it in a place that will constantly remind you of your goals (Ex. Mirror, wall in your office, etc.). This method helps you hold yourself accountable for your actions. If you are really serious about it, I suggest that you journal each day to help you see your progress and what areas you need to work harder at.

Here’s an example to help you get started. First, it is important to remind you that the “Resolution” is your goal, this is what you strive to ultimately obtain. In order to achieve your goal/resolution, you must set objectives, or steps to help you reach that goal. Look at it as if you were trying to reach the top of a ladder. There’s no way to reach the top without taking it step by step with each step being important in helping you make it to the top.

Instead of this:
Resolution: Lose 20 lbs by Jan. 1, 2011
Objectives:
Eat Better
Exercise


Try this…
Resolution: To become physically fit by Jan. 1, 2011
Objectives:
Exercise 3-5 times per week: strength training/toning as well as cardio.
Increase my daily fruit and vegetable intake.
Lose 20 pounds by April 1, 2010
Get off of blood pressure medication
Remove high calorie/sugar drinks from my diet (cokes, juice) and increase my water consumption to 64oz per day

This is a very basic example of what your resolution should look like. I hope that this serves as a template for you to start thinking about your health goals for the next year. As we know, Mississippi has been noted as the unhealthiest state with the most obese children. We can change this, but it starts with a healthy mindset. Therefore, as we quickly approach January 1, 2010, I encourage you to put some thought into where you are now, (as far as health is concerned) and where you want/NEED to be and make your resolutions accordingly!

Nakeitra Hill, B.S, M.S, CHES
Certified Personal Trainer

Babies having babies...

So I know I'm suppose to be giving healthy tips...but please bear with me as I vent a little. With my job, at times I have to travel to different schools for health fairs and to speak to students. A recent event really made me aware of the fact that our youth have no drive or ambition! I blame it on several factors such as: small town mentality, parental involvement/guidance, and environmental influences, to only name a few.

There are high schools...and junior high schools where pregnancy is the norm. This absolutely breaks my heart because they feel like having a baby is the end all be all. At this point, college is no longer an option. Maybe I care too much, but there has to be something that we can do!

I don't know what the answer to this problem is, but I realize that it is a viscous cycle that keeps going full circle. My parents were 21 and 22 when they had me...and I cannot wrap my mind around me being a parent at that age. Therefore, as I said previously, much of it has to do with the way one was raised. I commend my parents on being absolutely amazing in raising my sisters and I. With this being said, I know that if there is one thing we cannot change, that is the way people choose to raise their children. BUT... what we CAN do is have an influence on those that we come in contact with. Please know that I am in no way discounting the fact that one can be a great parent at a young age, but there are so many of our children falling by the wayside because they do not have the proper mentors and influential figures to push them to achieve at their full potential.

So I say all of this to say, please encourage our children to be the best that they can be and to pursue their dreams...without succumbing to peer pressure. I have finally come to grips with the fact that I cannot change the world, but if I can just have a positive impact on one then I have done my job! I ask that you do the same because we were once told "You are the future!" Now there is a new generation that is the future...let's encourage them!

**** Now, I will get back to giving you healthy tips! :) ******

Heart of the City: Dying to Eat in Jackson, MS

As I browsed through my News Feed on Facebook last night, I found many differing opinions on the BET Special "Heart of the City: Dying to Eat in Jackson." The comments included things such as: "this is exploitation of MS people" "Star Jones should not have been the host," "Why, MS? We're already the poorest state." My comment to all of these is simply: THE TRUTH HURTS.

I do believe that BET could have selected a host that did not have such a drama filled weight loss story. There were some major issues behind Star Jones weight loss regimen, which in some ways discounted her as a credible source to deliver the program.

Despite my issues with the host, I do believe that this show was very much needed. We give the spotlight to everything under the sun...so why not shine a light on an issue that is killing our nation.

The special gave insight to personal stories of obesity and how it has negatively affected so many lives. One of the ladies in particular had both her mother and sister succumb to health issues associated with obesity within a span of 2 years. This unfortunate turn of events prompted her to make a major lifestyle change. More of us should decide to make that change. It should not take the death of a family...or 2 for us to change our lives.

Here are just a few statistics on obesity in Mississippi. After taking a look at these startling numbers, I hope that you realize that this is a serious issue that is completely preventable.
-Mississippi is ranked as the UNHEALTHIEST state...its been that way for a couple of years now.
-32.5% of individuals in Mississippi are considered obese
-31.7% of adults in Mississippi are considered obese.
-44.4% of Mississippi children ages 10-17 are considered obese.
These numbers should show you that obesity is a problem, this is not even to mention the health issues associated with obesity (heart disease, diabetes, etc).

All in all, I firmly believe that the special was much needed. As I say to so many people "Everyone wants to change, but no one wants to put in the work." I hope that this special encouraged at least 1 person to make a change for the better!