Sunday, February 23, 2014

AGING MADE EASIER - Identifying Ways to Get and Stay Healthy


 
AGING MADE EASIER
Identifying Your Ways to Get and Stay Healthy

            When there is a major hill to climb in life, some people turn to solutions and other people turn to excuses.  One of the things that always entertain me is when people believe that they are way too far past the time in life that would allow them to do a particular thing.  I find it hysterical when a girl who is in her mid-30’s talks to us about how she has had a few kids and could not possibly handle or become good at formatted interval training like PLYOGA.  I think at that very moment about the 74 and 75 year old women at the Ocean Club in Manahawkin, NJ who came in and smashed a PLYOGA workout while a handful of younger girls walked out as if they were vindicated.

            Aging is truly a matter of the mind but it is also a conscious agreement you make with your body.  When I first met my wife, I was 26.  I knew she was amazingly passionate in a big way about fitness.  I worked out 5 days per week and would swim and run occasionally and would always tell Stephanie that I worked out hard and was just past my time in life to be really cut and have abs.  6 years, Insanity, all of the P90X’s, clean eating, Isagenix, and months of PLYOGA later, I am getting leaner and stronger than I have ever been.  I would have a 6 pack already if we had the deep food knowledge we have now, just a bit earlier.  I am on my way to an elite core and always tell Stephanie about 57 year old fitness guru Tony Horton’s banner quotes, “Aging is for idiots” or “Aging is for those who do not know any better.”

            I laugh at the first quote but I prefer to highlight the latter quote because it is the closest to the truth.  Things have become so complicated in nutrition (with the wake of artificial everything, GMO’s etc.) that you literally either have to be a certified food expert, or have years and years of practice and diligence in finding your way through the static.  You have to be steadfast in your conviction to find nutritious outlets, shop in stores that promote healthy growth of food, and find the nutrient rich products that are so essential for health.  You have to ask tough questions about why certain things are able to be sold in stores, and then track those answers back to the fact that the same company that makes that toxic food also makes the medication to combat the problems their food causes.

            It always puzzles me how people view all fats as the enemy and would rather derive the rich taste in their food from artificial sweeteners, which are like taking a dose of cancer stimulation every day.  Coffee creamers are all of the rage today with their hidden element of trans-fats that does not need to be disclosed because it is below a certain threshold.  I’m sure 1 chip of lead paint never killed anybody either, but I challenge you to eat 1 every day (don’t do it).  Mono & Poly-saturated fats are the good ones, but should still be consumed in moderation.  Saturated fats should be very limited and you should never eat a trans-fat item. 

            When you look on a label and it says 1 gram of fat, and then the breakdown underneath says, (0 saturated, 0 mono, 0 poly, 0 trans), look at the ingredients.  When partially hydrogenated soybean oil is there it means you are about to eat the ticket to the NUMBER 1 killer of women in America.  It has been proven that trans-fats are a direct cause of heart disease.  This then begs another question to be answered.  Why does everyone just care about breast cancer and mammograms when heart disease kills more women?  You dig deeper and you find that metals in the form of antiperspirants in lady’s deodorant have also been found countless times harvesting inside the defective cancerous breast tissue of breast cancer patients. 

            You go to the grocery store and search the entire women’s section of deodorant and you find out that you either need to buy men’s deodorant or go to a health food store to buy deodorant without antiperspirant because it does not exist in the store for women.  Why?  I would assume most people would say, “you could drive yourself crazy trying to figure all of this out,” or “YOLO” or “whatever,” but the reality is that there comes a day when you have nearly unraveled the puzzle and then it is not so difficult to live (like us). 

            Definition 2 of Idiot; a person who acts in a self-defeating or counter-productive way.  It is easier to embrace Tony’s slogan, “Aging is for idiots” if you see it this way.  There are fantastic cheat sheets to healthy eating in the form of things like Isagenix (which we use) and Shakeology, but knowledge is a power that is ridiculously undefeatable.  Becoming an aging superstar goes miles past food as well.  Once you get through certain food barricades, you learn facts like 5 drops of Eucalyptus oil in your cool mist humidifier or boiling it in water on your stove releases into the air and eliminates 80% of staph bacteria in a room.  You learn that natural oils like Tea tree oil as a conditioner can strengthen and regrow hair, whereas your chemical conditioner that you currently use is damaging the long term health of your scalp and causing your hair to fall out.  There is bleach in most people’s face wash while natural fruits and oil mixtures will give you the best skin you ever had.

            To cater to the naysayers, I will observe the notion that you can truly drive yourself crazy, or you can tackle each area of your life one step at a time.  You can ask people who know already and they can share the information with you.  It’s like being in serious financial debt.  You can theoretically live your life that way, but it is far more healthy and less stressful to develop a plan and take down those bills one at a time until you are free of recklessness.

Here are some other simple plans to take with you to the store:

ü  Health food items that have more sugar or artificial sweeteners than protein are not health foods

ü  Your skin is your largest organ.  If you are going to eat healthy for your smaller organs, nourish your largest organ with completely natural based soaps rather than soaps made in a lab. 

ü  You have vital blood pipelines and glands in your neck.  If you are going to wear perfume, spray it on your wrist instead. 

ü  Diet soda is more toxic and more unhealthy than regular soda.  Both are terrible because the high fructose corn syrup and sugar cripples and destroys your metabolism.  Buy naturally flavored seltzer.

ü  Cows are injected with steroids to grow faster and produce milk in greater abundance.  Buy organic milk or unsweetened almond milk.

ü  Beware of brands that tout all natural sugars and then disguise their added sugar as evaporated cane juice.  That’s like calling sea salt, evaporated ocean water.

ü  Be courageous about trying new healthy options.  You just might like it. Release the 2 year old in you.

We would be happy to try and direct you to more sources for knowledge if you have other questions that pop up.  Message us at any of the following:

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Email: PLYOGAFitness@gmail.com

Twitter:@PLYOGAFitness 

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER! YOUR BODY IS POWER!
-thomasascough