How You Create Your Life Fitness Vision

I don’t need to tell you that the only person who can create your big adventure is you. You don’t start any journey without a plan or a road map or itinerary. Otherwise you’ll get lost.

The starting point for the change your want to create is the vision you hold in your mind for your own personal Life Fitness. Every aspect of your life is interconnected – what you own, where you live, how you eat and take care of your body. You won’t (or can’t) deal with your physical wellness if you’re trapped under clutter at home or work.

You start by opening up the space around you – both physically and emotionally – to lighten up your life. My experience showed me a connection between clutter and weight. I don’t have any studies to prove it – but many people who struggle with weight issues also battle with balance in other areas of their life – often in another form of consumption.

I know that I know this isn’t a coincidence! That’s why I’m committed to helping you see that home is the best place to start taking organizational baby steps that WILL create a ripple effect across all the parts of your life.

Start by asking yourself what it is you really want. Life can’t be perfect, but I think we all have our own unique vision of the life we WISH we had. When clutter fills your body or your space it blocks that vision – both literally and figuratively. Asking yourself what you want is a way of looking at things with a fresh eye and taking your beyond your present situation.

So what does your vision look like? Defining it in detail is the jumping off point for deciding what’s of value to you and what you need to let go.
Without the vision change is harder. Good intentions only go so far. I discovered this personally when I tried to make changes in my own life. I’d get up early to work out – for a few days, or a week or even a month. I stopped eating refined white sugar until a low energy day when I absolutely had to have an apple fritter from the local bakery.

We begin with enthusiasm, but the follow through . . . well, you know. It’s a lot easier to leave things the way they are than to take action. I know it only too well. It’s especially true if you’ve tried before and failed.
Guess what? The past doesn’t matter. It will take some time and some thought. The details may be sketchy right now. But you can do it.

And remember – the key here is MOVEMENT. You’ve only got one life. Live well.

Does Getting Organized Improve Your Health? Yes!

Chaos and clutter steal more than your joy – they steal your health. The solution doesn’t lie in counting calories and fat grams or religiously tossing your junk mail instead of letting it pile up on the counter. It’s understanding the relationship of clutter to your life and deciding to get your home and your life under control so you can live healthier.
If your home doesn’t support you physically and emotionally, you can’t adopt a healthy lifestyle. The goal of Life Fitness is to define the gap between where you are right now and where you want to be.
Organization is about control and balance. That’s also a key to healthy living. When your space is organized you feel less stressed and overwhelmed. For instance, an organized kitchen that is well-stocked with healthy, easy to prepare foods facilitates clean eating. You are less likely to reach for a frozen dinner or phone for takeout because you have other choices.
A clutter filled space drains your energy and motivation. It takes more effort to focus and make decisions. If you don’t make those decisions, the world has a way of sneaking in and making them for you. And if your world happens to be made up of too much TV, fast food, sugar and time on the couch – well, you get the point.
When I begin coaching with a client, we don’t start by racing through the house heaving things into the trash. We start by talking about what’s important to them – in their home, their schedule, relationships, and body.
I believe that when you shape your life your body will follow – not the other way around.
Your effectiveness is directly related to your connectedness.
Decluttering your space and your schedule is a major step toward a healthy, energized life.
I’ll leave you with my tips to live by:
• Break decluttering into small, manageable tasks.
• Decide to make it a way of life, otherwise the clutter will crawl right back and multiply.
• Use decluttering to teach you how to verbalize what’s important to you and to make choices based on your priorities.
• Rejoice over every space in your home where you’ve conquered clutter. It will motivate and inspire you.

Get on the Ball!

Get on the Ball!

If your home gym contains just one piece of equipment, it's got to be a stability ball.

There are ball exercises for every part of the body, but I especially like to work the core using the ball.

A strong core is key for a healthy body. The core is basically the torso area - the abdominal muscles (rectus abdominis, internal and external obliques and transverse abdominis) as well as the erector spinae (3 pairs of muscles that run along the spine and stabilize your posture). If you're over 40, you may have noticed that if you do gain some excess pounds they seem to go right to your midsection more than they ever did.

The combo of cardio exercise, strength training, core work and clean eating will melt off that weight and keep your middle strong and toned.

Here's a dynamite core exercise for you (and there are many more in my new e-workbook - The Busy Women's Workout Guide - coming in April):

Clamshell Crunch on Ball

Starting Position
Sit on a mat and place a stability ball between your legs (at your calves/ankles). Squeezing the ball in place, lie back onto the floor, keeping your feet just off the ground, knees bent. Make sure your lower back stays planted and your abs are tight. Place your hands lightly behind your ears in a crunch position.

Action
EXHALE: Simultaneously lift your shoulders off the ground and your knees into your chest to perfom a double crunch.

INHALE: Slowly return to start to complete one rep.

Don't let momentum swing your knees up for you. Be sure your hands are not lifting your upper body-- concentrate on using abs.

Is Your Clutter Making You Fat?

I don't believe you can take control of your health and well being unless you make the place you dwell a happy, peaceful place. Winston Churchill said, "We shape our dwellings and afterward our dwellings shape us." Good health and a clutter free lifestyle go hand in hand. If you don't respect yourself enough to create a happy space to live, are you really going to treat your body any differently?

Your home is the center of your life. It's a reflection of who you are and how you choose to live. Physical and emotional clutter get in the way of your relationships, your happiness and your health. It's hard to move. It's hard to focus and stay motivated.

One client of mine mentioned how guilty she felt walking past the bookshelves filled with workout DVD's she'd never used and the elliptical machine that was now covered with laundry. (I have NEVER done a major declutter in a home that contained a workout machine that was used regularly.) Another talked about the persistent low level of stress she felt when her home got cluttered. She felt out of control which triggered emotional overeating.

There is a ripple effect (those baby steps that lead to a quantum shift and breakthrough!) that decluttering has on every area of your lfe. Clearing away the stuff helps you clear away the patterns of thought and the behaviors that prevent you from living the way you want.

Is your clutter making you fat? Quite possibly.

The clutter that fills your countertops making it impossible for you to use your kitchen to prepare healthy meals. . .

The clothes you hang on to hoping you'll fit into someday that are stuffed in your closet . . .

The disorganized pantry crammed with unhealthy food . . .

The boxes and boxes of papers and files that you trip over. . .

The guest room so filled with clutter that you can barely open the door. . .

The dining room table you can’t sit down at because the surface is covered with unopened mail. . .

I’m not suggesting that every person who lives in a cluttered space is overweight. But there is always a burden when clutter is present – whether it manifests physically or emotionally – it exists.

When I help people declutter their space, we never start running through tossing stuff into a dumpster. We begin by talking about what matters to them. We focus on the larger vision of what they want their life to look like.

Everything is connected. You’ll never be truly healthy if the majority of your life is cluttered, stressful and overwhelming. You won’t have the energy to pursue exercise and healthy eating. It’s that simple. Think through your body-home relationship and resolve to clean up what’s cluttering them both. Then watch the weight just fall away!

Do you know your measurements?

Your health measurements that is. Throw out the scales and concentrate on your BMI and Girth Measurements for a truer picture of your fitness. The following are provided by the American Heart Association, 2008 and the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

GIRTH MEASUREMENTS:
Abdominal: More than 35 inches indicates overweight/obesity for women; 40 for men
Calculate: Measure your abdomen at its widest part with a tape measure.
Waist to Hip: Healthy for women: 0.70 to 0.88; 0.90 to 0.95 for men
Calculate: Divide the circumference of the waist at the navel by the circumference of the hips at their widest point

BMI (Body Mass Index):
Healthy: 18.5 to 24.9
Overweight: 25 to 29.9
Obese: 30 or higher
Calculate: Multiply your weight in pounds by 703, divide by your height in inches, and then divide again by your height in inches

Body Fat Percentage:
Healthy for Women Overweight Obese
Age 20-40 21 to 33% 33 to 39% over 39%
41-60 23 to 35% 35 to 40% over 40%
60-79 24 to 36% over 40% over 42%

Calculate: Do a skin-fold caliper test, which pinches the skin to measure subcutaneous fat, or use the bioelectrical impedance method (available at health clubs or visit www.bodytronics.com for a version you can purchase).

Spring clean Your Fridge & Freezer

Most people, it turns out, don't understand the dangers of improper food storage. The American Dietetic Association found that only 40% of consumers knew that eating food that has been stored in refrigerators warmer than 40 degrees Fahrenheit can increase the risk of food-borne illness.

Food poisoning and other food-borne illnesses are common. Last year, there were an estimated 76 million cases of food-borne illness in the United States, according to the CDC.

When in Doubt, Throw It Out

You can't always tell if a food has spoiled by its smell or appearance. Don't take chances with your health. The advice from the FDA: When it doubt, throw it out.

If food looks or smells strange, don't even risk tasting it -- just toss it. Mold you can see on the surface is just the tip of the iceberg; there could be poisons under the surface of the food that aren't detectable by the naked eye.

With a few foods -- such as hard cheeses, salami, and firm fruits -- you can cut the mold away, but be sure to remove a large section around any mold you can see. In general, food with mold should be tossed.

You already know that you need to throw out those containers of "mystery food" found in the bowels of your fridge.
But what about those jars of condiments that have been open and around for years? Most will stay fresh for two months on the door of the refrigerator. That part of the fridge is designed for storing condiments, because their acidic content tends to make them more resistant to bacterial contamination than other foods. Still, their quality is likely to decrease with time.

Food safety starts as soon as you leave the grocery store. Go home and immediately put away your groceries. Check the labels of foods to determine the best way to store them.
Make sure your refrigerator is at 40 degrees or less and your freezer 0 degrees or less. The only sure way to check the temperature is by putting a clearly visible thermometer inside each compartment (but not on the door). Check it often as temperatures can fluctuate, especially in warm weather. If temperatures get too high, adjust the controls.

It's also important to keep your refrigerator and freezer clean. Wipe up any spills immediately. And once a week, wipe down the interior walls, shelves, and rubber gaskets with a weak cleaning solution to sanitize.

Food Storage Dos and Don'ts

Here are some tips to remember when storing and using foods:
•Wrap foods tightly with two layers of freezer wrap before putting in the freezer or use shrink wrapping for an air-tight seal around the food.
•Store eggs in their cartons -- and don't keep them on the refrigerator door.
•Don't wash fresh produce until you're ready to use it. Store it in perforated plastic bags, and use within a few days. Bananas should not be refrigerated.
•To allow for air circulation in either your fridge or freezer, don't overfill the compartments. Without good circulation, it's difficult to maintain the proper temperatures.
•Store leftovers in tightly covered containers within two hours after cooking. Use in 3-5 days.
•Store food and cleaning supplies separate.
•Keep potatoes and onions in a cool, dry location. Don't refrigerate them or keep them under the sink, where moisture from pipes can cause damage.
•Check use-by or sell-by dates on food packages. Remember, these dates don't apply once the package is opened.
•Best-if-used-by dates are the most reliable ones to follow. They take normal handling into account.
•Put raw meat on the bottom shelf of your refrigerator, in a plastic bag. This will keep the juices from dripping onto other foods.

Food kept in the freezer so long that ice crystals dominate its appearance is safe to eat, since no organisms can live in subzero temperatures. And the nutritional quality remains intact. Still, you probably don't want to eat it -- the quality of this frozen tundra will certainly be less than ideal.
To prevent freezer burn, make sure that the food is tightly wrapped or shrink wrapped with freezer-quality wrap, and get as much air out between the food and the wrap.

Recession Proof Your Life - 7 Secrets from the Pros

Believe it or not, when you are physically organized and good at managing your schedule, you make the most of your time, energy – and money! And in these challenging economic times, you want to maximize your resources in all 3 of those areas.
Professional organizers know that the secret to organization isn’t neatness or rigidity. It’s function. We know that once we help the client identify his/her unique organizational system and custom design it to fit their natural habits and the way they think – it brings out their absolute BEST self. And optimizes their resources, passions, interests, and abilities.
While getting organized doesn’t come naturally to a lot of people, it can be learned. Remember the key here is to think FUNCTION – not NEATNESS.

Here are a few tips from the pros:

1. Design your own system. Like exercise and fitness programs – cookie cutter, one size fits all solutions don’t work. So don’t copy someone else’s system or something you read in an organizing book. A good PO recognizes that you have a unique way of managing your lifestyle – so why try to adopt an organizing system created for somebody else’s life? Consider your own goals and habits and design your system accordingly.

2. Think zones. Or as Julie Morgenstern (Professional Organizer, seen on Oprah show) calls it – The Kindergarten Model. There are clearly defined zones for each activity – arts and crafts, building blocks, books, etc. Once you’ve identified the proper zone for your stuff and activities, it’s a no brainer to retrieve and put away items.

3. Start with the basics. Organize the most frequently used areas of your home first. Generally they take the least amount of time and will give you a big boost of confidence and sense of control. Examples? The entry way to your home that’s overflowing with coats, shoes, umbrellas and boots. Your bathroom, your dresser drawers. Your purse or briefcase. Your reward will come in the form of inspiration and motivation to take on the bigger projects later.

4. Know thyself. Professional organizers learn to know themselves and their clients really well. They know how to track a person’s energy cycles – noting when they have the most energy and when motivation and energy start to fade. They learn which activities will serve as natural energy boosters – like exercising, taking a healthy snack break, or a 15 minute snooze. Determining what conditions need to be in place for your personal peak performance insures you have the inner resources to complete tasks with less frustration.

5. How long can you focus? Do you know how long you can focus on any given task? Maybe you can write for hours, but getting through a 45 minute work out feels almost insurmountable. Once you know how long you’re able to focus on a particular task or activity, you will get results every time. The trick is to plan tasks that won’t be either too much or too little for the time you have available.

6. Buddy up or hire a pro. Getting organized can be difficult. Period. It’s emotional and sometimes draining. If you get caught up questioning what it is you need or how to go about it, you’ll never get to setting up a system. An outside perspective can be just the thing to keep you on track. Professional organizers or friends will take your particular needs at face value and help you build a system around them. My recession proof your life – one project at a time is a great way to get started!

7. Picture success. In 3D if possible. Imagine you are exactly where you wish to be. In detail. Where are you, what do you look like, what is your day like? Your environment? Visualization is an important element that will radically improve your success rate. See what it is you want and act as if you already have it. Write it down. If you’re shy about stating your goals, or act as if you don’t care whether you achieve them or not – it’s like shooting yourself in the foot. Remember – you’ll see it when you believe it!

No substitute for sweat

There's no substitute for hard work when it comes to working out - period.
According to a study at the University of California, Santa Cruz, the best way to improve your muscular strength, endurance, body composition and flexibility is through a combination of resistance training with aerobic exercise in a single workout.

In other words - before each set of resistance training you should perform a short bout of cardio - on a treadmill, stationery bike or run/skip in place. This elevates the heart rate and keeps it raised for longer than if you were to do only weights. This allows you to burn more fat and build more muscle in less time.

Essentially you'll transform your regular strength training routine into a fat-blasting, building triumph!

So crank up the intensity of your next work out and start seeing bigger results FAST!

Are you sure you know how to maximize fat loss?

I recognize that fitting in a daily workout can be challenging for most of us. The daily battle of juggling work and family responsibilities leaves little time for you. And the time crunch can seem even worse when you need to perform more than one type of exercise during a work out session.

The question is - can you do just a couple of miles of easy jogging on the treadmill, or a walk outside and you're done? Can you lift some dumbbells for 20 minutes or so and call it good? Unfortunately, the answer is no - not if you want to get fit and lose those extra pounds.

There are 3 types of workouts you must do if you want to maximize fat loss and build muscle and endurance: strength training, high intensity interval training and long duration endurance exercise.

Why? First, almost all fat burning takes place in the muscle cells. So the more muscle you have, the more opportunities to burn fat.

Recent studies have shown that strengthening a particular type of muscle fiber may maximize your fat burning ability. You have 2 types of muscle fibers.
Type 2 fibers are powerful muscles that contract very quickly. Type 1 fibers contract more slowly but are more fatigue resistant.

Developing the Type 2 fibers (fast twitch) can result in a decrease in body fat levels and improvement in metabolic function because they are able to increase fatty acid oxidation.

Then we come to high intensity exercise. Many people think that low to moderate level exercise is best for fat burning. NOT true! High intensity exercise burns calories and fat at a much faster rate, resulting in greater overall fat loss.

That being said, you still need to do the endurance type training. That means longer duration, steady state exercise. Endurance exercise still burns calories and has the added benefit of making physiological changes in your body that will make you a more efficient fat burner!

Studies have also shown that people who do both aerobic and resistance training tend to eat less than those who do either one or the other. The thinking is that doing both causes a shift in hormones that control appetite.