You know me, I have conquered the beast that is health balance and I'm here to convince you it's easier than you think.... Here are my TOP 5 healthy life hacks that make me as svelte, athletic and strong everyday.
1. Organize your health and connect with your body;
➡️Start a health journal. Write down everything that you feel physically. Maybe it starts with small things (your energy, diet, bowel movements, lungs, joint inflammation, sex life, etc.) but eventually as you continue to write, you'll identify more and more nuances that will help you better predict when you can stress your body out with a harder workout and when to hold off. This is crucial if you're trying to balance your hormones, lose or gain weight. You're body needs to be in optimal and prime condition to get the most out of your physical training.
2. Challenge your heart every chance you get;
➡️Take the stairs, do 20 split squats and push ups in between tele-conferences, or do a 2 minute plank. If you do these four every day you'll burn between 150-300 cals extra per day. Nice add-on to your 30-60min daily workout routine.
3. Hydrate with electrolyte water!
➡️85% of your blood cell volume is water. If your cells are shriveled up because they are starving for water, your organs, muscles and systems will suffer. Electrolytes provide the proper balance for cellular hydration equilibrium. That is, the ability to take in enough water to run your body nice and efficiently.
4. Eat these five foods religiously:
➡️Kale, pecans, asparagus, salmon, yogurt.
Add these complementary supplements to support your systems:
➡️Tumeric, cinnamon, choline, vitamin D, tyrosine.
4. Engage your proprioception:
➡️From Latin Proprius, meaning "one's own", "individual" and perception, is the sense of the relative position of neighbouring parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement. Try these three exercises:
1⃣ Stand, eyes closed, and transfer weight to one foot. Lift opposite leg off floor and try balancing for 5 seconds. Notice how your body processes your weight differently when your sense of sight and through sight balance, is taken away. How can your strengthen your muscles to support without your proprioceptive sense engaged?
2⃣ While walking on path and in a safe place, try closing your eyes and taking 5 steps. Increase as you feel comfortable. Notice how your body feels and processes the ground differently as you take each step forward. You become much more aware of your musculature as your other senses are heightened by the lack of sight.
3⃣ Stand on a level floor surface with one foot in front of the other, heel to toe. Arms are at sides or raised—whichever is easier. Stand still in this position for 30 seconds with your eyes open. Next, close your eyes and stand still in the same position for 30 seconds. How do your muscles and the position change when your remove your sense of sight?
EXTRA CREDIT!!!
6. Meditate, meditate, meditate;
➡️Quieting that treadmill is seriously the hardest thing you do all day. Remove your thought process about what it should be--we get too caught up in nuances of what things "should" be, we end up giving up. This is YOUR moment, even if you're only giving yourself ten minutes to "not think" for yourself. This is nothing and everything at once. It can be as expansive or confined, depending on how you much you are willing to let go. Try this:
1⃣ Take a deep breath and count to 3 on your inhale. Exhale for a count of 3.
2⃣ On your next inhale, count to 4. Exhale slower to a count of four.
3⃣ Continue on this tract until you reach 8. The more you breathe, the more oxygen gets absorbed and your body will respond by relaxing. Under stress we hold our breath or breathe short shallow breaths and our body thinks it is starving for oxygen. The more you take in, the more your mind relaxes your musculature because it knows it's getting what it needs to survive and then some.
Thats it! Just those five everyday and you will be a new person and take your body to a whole new sense of healthy! Let me know what you think if you get a chance and enjoy living healthy and in balance.
-Shayna