Make it happen

Normally, I don't advise trickery.


But in cases of health and fitness, or potential health and fitness- I advise it, it works.
most of how we get our exercise and decide what we eat is all about our minds. - It's how we relate to our fitness and food intake.

We've talked about goal setting. If you have a dream and you make a plan to get there and then follow it - that moves it from the dream or wish category right into the goal spectrum.
that's good.

Ways to convince yourself to help you reach any goals & some examples I can give you of what I do...

{An immediate goal of mine is to improve my physical health and increase my level of fitness.}

Things I really do:

Construct a dream board.
* Make a bulletin board into a dream board you will see everyday. cram it full of all the things you would like to see happen in your life. look at it every day. study it, add to it-  and draw power and inspiration from it. It's an evolutionary thing that can change as your goals do.

Put inspirational posters up where you know you need them.
*To get myself to run in the morning I put print outs of things I know will get me fired up to get outside I have one on my bedroom wall. the first thing I see when I open my eyes and also have a poster in my bathroom (everyone has that one spot in the bathroom they stare at in the morning when they pee. That's where my poster is at) They can say anything but most of mine say things like "If they hate you now, just wait till you're done." and "Wake up, the pavement misses your feet".

The Fridge.
* cut out a picture of something that motivates you could be an athlete or someone that holds the ideal of what you're going for. Cut it out and tape it to the fridge. it will help. I write notes also. on the fridge about eating for fuel and not emotional domination.
Mix and match whatever works for you best.

Know yourself
- you know yourself best. I used to say I was going to run in the morning but never wanted to actually put my running clothes and socks on when the time came. So I launched a

preemptive

strike on myself. - I went to bed every night in all of my running clothes socks included- and I got used to it. The result was i only had to get up put my shoes on and go outside. and i managed to run basically every single day for about a year.

You know yourself best so launch as many

preemptive

strikes as you need to to make sure you get your business done.

Oh, another BIG one for me is not buying what I know to be junk food at the store. I just don't buy it at all. Then it's not in my house. Its kind of a win-win for me.

That's all for now.
Thanks everyone for reading.
Have a secret weapon or trick you use against yourself for the greater good? Leave it in the comments :)

Tasty TASTY num nums

First of all, Good morning.

Second - LOOK at that.

What is that? Its a Homemade pear and caramelized balsamic onion flat bread. Delicious and good for you.

It can be made with any store bought or home made pizza dough. I prefer the whole wheat kind at Trader Joe's. I'll tell you how its made and then give the nutrition breakdown. * Quick side note: all ingredients to make 2 BIG cookie sheet size flat breads totaled under 10 bucks purchased at my local Trader Joe's. That's a tasty dinner, nutritious and not expensive. It keeps well in the fridge - and is nummy eaten either hot or cold.

----

So! Here's the deal. 1 bag of dough per large cookie sheet sized flat bread. Spray a cookie sheet, or round pizza pan, or put the dough on a dry baking stone.

- spray hands with olive oil (you've washed them already, so this is totally cool)

use your hands to press the dough evenly as possible to cover the whole surface that you will bake it on. Thin crust will be crispier - thick crust will be chewier. *If you take the dough out of the fridge an hour or so before you begin it will make this process much easier :)*

-after your dough is all pressed out nice, cut half a large white or yellow onion and dice it, saute the onion until soft and translucent (5 minutes roughly) watch it, stir it. don't let it burn. add 2 TBSP balsamic vinegar to your onions. Let them caramelize a bit and then take them off the heat, they're done.

Assembly; for the pear/onion gorgeous flat bread layer on your whole wheat pizza dough just sitting there waiting for you:

A mist of olive oil over the crust followed by sliced pears, your camelized onion mixture, 1/2 cup each of crumbled feta and 1/2 cup crumbled bleu cheese. Put that bad boy in the oven and bake it at 400 degrees until its bubbling and the crust is slightly brown on the edge and bottom. take it out. slice it into squares or slices. Whatever makes you happier - a cookie sheet size flat bread should yield about 24 complex, balanced, mouth watering pieces.

so to sum up the flat bread ingredients are:

Whole wheat pizza dough

Olive oil

Balsamic vinegar

Onions

pears

feta cheese

blue cheese

BOOM - that's it.

- We also modified this and created a Sun dried tomato flat bread on garlic/herb pizza dough and took the pears out of the equation.

It's the same exact thing but we just swapped the pears for Sun dried tomatoes and the whole wheat crust for a garlic and herb one. It was just as easy but had a different but equally delicious flavor profile. The possibilities are really endless with this method. :)

Breakdown:

each slice contains 190 calories

11 grams of fat,

30 grams of carbs (derived mostly from whole wheat dough and the pear)

7 grams protein

A couple pieces of flat bread and a big salad would make for a well balanced lunch or dinner. If you give this flat bread a try I'm sure it will be a big hit- it is one of my new favorites. :)

Eat real food.
If it has a face or comes from the ground. Eat it. - If your into eating stuff with faces (understandable), go for it.
If it was created in a lab, blasted with hydrogen, chemically altered. DON'T eat/drink it.
Your body doesn't know what to do that that garbage - franken food. Do your self a favor and abstain from even buying that crap.

- Question. You ever see a Cheetos tree?
No. that's right - its crap. Your body can barley metabolize it.
feed your body REAL food and see what happens. You will be amazed.
If your already on the eating real food road - you know how awesome it is. *high effin five*

There's no magic anything people. Move your ass and fight the system.
Until we meet again - eat well, be well. Rock it out.

-Josie

I know Kung Fu... Show me.

Good morning, I hope to be catching you in the midst of a prosperous day. J

I want to talk about two things this week. I have been lying awake in my bed at night, my mind full of things I should expel from it.

The things I would like to talk for a little bit about are: priories and potential.  

Priorities, what are yours? If you were to write down a list of say 5- 10 important things you really want but don’t have what would they be? Would it be stuff, useless things? Monetary gain? The acclimation of needless crap for the sake of self appointed importance or status? Would you write down success? At work or study? Would you write down the health/happiness of everyone around you? What is it that you would really want? Write a few things down. We all know what we want. Write it down and make it real. Don’t look ahead. Do it now.

I’ll be here when you’re done.

Did you do it?

Okay, look at your list. However long or short it is. Did you even put yourself on the list? If so, are you dead last or at the very bottom? I know this happens a lot. We get all involved with everyone’s else and their needs (not to say that isn’t important) and completely forget about ourselves and I’ve got a little secret for you: It shows. Look, when it comes to the lively hood of your family, friends, whosever priories you put in front of your own. You need to put yourself in that first place spot to take care of all the other things you must do. What happens if you aren’t around? Or are incapacitated in some way? YOU, by neglecting yourself are just taking yourself out of the equation. You will make other people suffer inadvertently just by putting yourself last or lower on your own list.

That being said.

Go back to the list.

What’s bulshit on there? Please cross off anything you can buy with cash. They make more money everyday people. It’s a common as dirt on the ground. And it’s going to be there. Cars and crap you can buy with money are next to nil compared to more important things in your life you should hold higher.  I’m talking important to you. Nothing of monetary value should really be on that list. It won’t last, it’s not something you should spend precious time on. There will always be more money, but there will never be more time.

So if you’ll look down at your possibly revised list. I want you look and see where you put yourself. If you aren’t on there yet, please cross out the number one spot and write your name. Adjust the list as needed. If you’re on there but not at the top please move yourself to the top ranking position. That’s where you are. Please see it and acknowledge it. Don’t deny yourself your own number one spot. In the event of a crash if the plane is going down, how helpful could you be to others if you don’t pull down your own O2 mask and secure it first? If you try in vain to save everyone else and neglect yourself how will you do any good for any of them if you are dead? You won’t. That’s the end of that.

The point is YOU should be important to you. I’m not talking about selfishness. I’m talking about longevity. The capacity to do well for longer is within everyone’s grasp and anyone can do it.

When in regard about taking care of one’s own self (being educated about Nutrition and applying that education, getting quality sleep and exercising) people will feed you lines and excuses about how they “Don’t want to live forever” that’s why they say they refuse to do anything good for themselves and really put themselves in that number one spot. It’s not about living forever baby, It’s about living well. If you don’t take care of yourself you won’t just tip over and die one day like boom. It’s more like you’ll die of terrible long stupid disease of the body or mind (that can be avoided initally alltogether!). I’m sorry but if eating well(that’s a whole different blog post I’m excited for , next week maybe? J), exercising, and sleeping enough (three things people!!) is enough to stave off nearly all of my chances of getting or contracting any of those problems, you bet your ass I’m gonna do all I can to be here for as long as I can. Living the highest quality that can be attained. Try putting yourself first for a day. Try not breaking a promise to yourself for a whole day or if you’re feeling brave – a whole week. We commit to other things, people, responsibilities and now you need to see that if you just commit to yourself how well things will work for you. Try it, trust the process and change your life.

I promise myself for example that I will eat right and get to the gym minimum of three mornings a week. I like to go for 5-6 but my PROMISE is 3 so to me, that’s a very high priority. Something I don’t break no matter what.

So here’s me this AM. It was a lower body day. I ran, maxed out my hammies and quads lifting and then hit the stairs.

Here I am in all my bloated back fatty period time of the month fresh tattoo still hurting glory.

Bleeding and sweating everywhere. (don't worry I wiped the machine down)

The best part is, that I’m doing this and nobodys making me –I'm doing things for my body and ultimately for myself and my family. And while I don’t HAVE to be there, I could be anywhere but it’s my choice to be there. And anyone could make it. I just want you to know that.

In summation, find what it is that is truly important to you and make no excuses in your plans to make it reality. You'll like it, I promise.