5 Physical Self-Care Boosts for Your Diet – and Your Life
There comes a time in everyone’s diet routine when it’s time to get physical. You’re doing good things to lose weight but you need something else to offer a boost.
But what?
Move those muscles, that’s what!
But there’s a secret to this success. It’s called planning.
If you don’t plan to schedule exercise, it won’t be a part of your life.
First: Start off super simple. Plan to meet a friend for a workout session of something…a brisk walk, a tennis game, a swim at your local Y.
Make it a weekly event.
What’s important is that you get out your calendar and schedule regular sessions with friends. When you schedule regular dates with friends, they’ll probably happen.
There are only a few details you need to work out:
Where will you exercise? Home, Park, Gym?
What will you do: Walk? Aerobics? Feldenkrais? Pilates? Golf?
When will you meet? Before work? Lunch hour? Weekends? After work?
Second: Use your watch to track your steps. My first fitness watch was a Garmin. My second, a FitBit. My third love is a Samsung. Each of these watches overperformed. My Samsung even takes phone calls.
But, don’t get distracted by all the wonderful things this wrist jewelry does. Use the treats which attract you. For me, it’s the magic number I check throughout the day which tells me how many steps I’ve taken.
Your fitness watch is a step counter. Mine tracks my steps throughout the day. My goal is 10,000 steps a day. I don’t worry about whether the intensity is low, moderate, or high. I’m concerned with the total. My goal is to enjoy myself when I know I’ve reached the magic number: 10,000.
Whether you have a Garmin, a Fitbit, a Samsung, or a simple pedometer, when you count your steps, you have a constant coach who travels with you and supports you in your health goals.
Third: While you’re at it, go for some strength training. This is not the same thing as exercising with a friend.
Strength training happens when you work all your muscles under the direction of a trainer. Whether you call it resistance training, weight training, or muscle training, you’re giving your body a bonus class once a week. Strength training is not painful.
The idea is to improve your bone density, firm and trim your body, lower your blood pressure and cholesterol levels, increase your self-esteem, and prevent falls. WOW
Find a qualified teacher and schedule a weekly class on a different day from exercising with a buddy. This is the training where you’ll start slow and set no upper limits for yourself. The sky is the limit.
Remember: strong is healthy.
Fourth: Join a yoga class. Yoga is therapeutic. It’s uplifting. It’s fun. It’s also an exercise where you compete only with yourself. There are many, many kinds of yoga and every teacher is different. Shop around.
I, personally, prefer restorative yoga. My current teacher, Carolyn Abedor, teaches Iyengar yoga. I love every minute I’m in her class. When you join the right yoga class for you, you’ll feel the same way about your teacher.
Fifth: Give yourself the gift of a regular reflexology session. Your feet are the command center of your body. A reflexology session honors you – physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. Each reflexology session brings homeostasis to your whole body. Go for it!
Thank you for reading this article. Please forward it to your preferred social media network.
Share this post with a friend!
Thurman greco
www.thurmangreco.com
A Crisis Toolkit for Your Mind, Body, and Spirit.
For years and years, I’ve carried around a crisis toolkit to use whenever a friend, family member, client, coworker, or complete stranger entered my life in a crisis situation. Do you have a healing tool kit?
I’m betting you do. After all, we’re all healers. We all carry one around, even if we don’t call it that. So my question is this: What’s in it?
My toolkit has things to help with fear as well as death and with the dreaded coronavirus. But it also has to help with all the other diseases and aches and pains we encounter in addition: colds, fever, rashes, asthma attacks, arthritis, heart attacks, cancer…
Maybe you feel your toolkit is not ready for today’s situation. It’s probably filled with all sorts of things you can use.
Here are some things I’m sharing with you. Maybe you have things in your toolkit you can share with me.
When it comes to supporting your mind, body, and spirit during these challenging times, I TURN FIRST TO YOGA. I recommend restorative yoga.
When you are stressed, a weekly session is important. I don’t know how it is in your area, but I’m in Upstate New York which is a new hot spot for Coronavirus. I take a restorative yoga class via Zoom every week with Carolyn Abedor.
Carolyn is a physical therapist/yoga instructor. I come away from her class restored, renewed, and recharged for the coming week. I would take her class twice a week but I work on the other day she teaches it.
Do you have a yoga teacher? If not, make finding one a priority. Today’s challenges call for restorative yoga. But, if you find a different yoga that you prefer…go for it. Use what works for you.
REIKI CANNOT BE OVERESTIMATED. Do you practice Reiki therapy? If so, don’t forget to use this tool every chance you get.
Use your Reiki when you walk into a building. Use it when you walk down the street. Use Reiki when you encounter other people. Everyone is stressed out. We can all use Reiki’s healing, calming energy.
If not, now is the best time I know of to learn Reiki. Reiki is essential in stressful times. And, frankly, no time can be more stressful than now.
If you don’t practice Reiki and you can’t find a teacher, book some sessions with a practitioner. Begin with 5 sessions.
Whether or not you practice Reiki, or visit a Reiki practitioner regularly, now is a good time to organize a Reiki circle or Reiki share. Gather several friends together and let the Reiki practitioners offer healing to everyone in the room. Reiki is not one bit intimidated by the requirements of social distancing.
DON’T FORGET REFLEXOLOGY. Reflexology sessions are extremely grounding. If you are stressed out or if you have health issues, Reflexology sessions can help. Gloves and face masks will not negatively impose on Reflexology.
HEALING MUSIC HAS BEEN AN IMPORTANT PART IN MY TOOL BOX FOR YEARS. I use it during healing sessions, classes, or whenever I feel the need.
Through the years, I’ve learned that healing music can be all sorts of sounds. Beauty is in the ears of the beholder. I tend to favor Deuter, Halpern, Ken Davis, Anugama. Your favorites may be totally different. Because of my experiences, I prefer the older musicians. But, there are many kinds of healing music available today. Explore them until you know what works best for you.
GUIDED MEDITATIONS are essential. I began reading those written by others and now create my own. I suggest that you go with someone else’s until the time is right for you. The goal of a guided meditation is to awaken, transform, or heal. For years, I relied on the meditations compiled in books by Larry Moen.
BEDSIDE TABLE BOOKS are essential. They are the books I read when my tanks need refilling. These books vary with the need. Sometimes escape is the only route. Other times, I need to know what other people have to say about the situation I’m dealing with.
I’m often hungry for the wisdom others offer. To prevent empty tanks, I try to read about an hour a day.
When I fed hungry and homeless people in a food pantry, I found solace in the statistics of hunger. At any given moment I could tell you what percentage of children in our country went to bed hungry. I knew the difference between resource poor and generational poor and struggling poor. I knew all about dumpster diving.
Now, I’m attracted to memoirs. It’s not the problems that attract me. It’s how the writer tackled the problem that counts.
Fear, and forgiveness are big on my list.
Finally, when I need to veg out, I go for whatever catalogue is in my mailbox.
The important thing is to know when to fill your own tanks. Your toolbox won’t be worth much if you’re stretched too thin.
Your toolkit may be totally different. It probably is different. After all, we are scattered all over the planet. I hope to hear about some things in your toolkit. Please email me.
Meanwhile, please forward this article to your preferred social media network.
In honor of this most stressful time, I’m offering you a free copy of a book I wrote entitled “Miracles”. Email your mailing address to thurmangreco@gmail.com before April 12th, and I’ll send it along – absolutely free with no strings attached.
Thank you for being here.
Thurman Greco
