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Transformation Fitness & Wellness

Pain Free…

Breathing and movement are the body’s two main priorities.

Yet most of us don’t do either well.

We live in constant pain and stress. We don’t feel good or as good as we can.

We are always on, meaning our sympathetic nervous system is always on fire, hello high blood pressure.

Another interesting thing is we almost always create this environment. We tell ourselves stories about what is going on verses the reality. This is coming from someone who has been conditioned for anxiety my entire life. I learned that I am in control of how I feel on a daily basis and I don’t have to live this way or rely on medicine or alcohol to feel better or be calm.

When you are not breathing well your body finds ways to “cheat”. Meaning if you are taking shallow, short breaths, your body will find ways to compensate. Then we feel back, shoulder, and/or neck pain.

When our body is not moving well, we also find cheats or ways to still do movement but not necessarily the most efficient way. Have you ever had hip pain only to find out the issue was on the other side of your body and once that was corrected – no hip pain?

What I am going to show you is so simple to do, most won’t, but I am going out on a limb that if you are still reading, you are curious and will try this out. 🙂

This is called Be Activated and this is how we help our client’s breath and move better, thus feel better and perform better.

Start with 10-12 Belly Breaths, place hands on abdomen and see the rise and fall.

Each day perform 3 Basic activations by vigorously stimulating the areas below. Press until the tissue resists then work where the tissue feels bound.

1. Diaphragm – Border of the lower ribs (costal margins) and middle of chest upside down Y

2. Psoas – Half way between your Hip bone and your belly button Umbilicus

3. Glute

a.) Back of head where skull meets the neck (occipital ride)

b.) Follow Jaw line to where angle of Jaw meets the ear and work into the gap.

Be Activated can help everyone who has an open mind and is willing to try. If you are closed off, it won’t work.

Isn’t that true about most things?

Let us know if you need help, living pain free and moving well!

Take care,

Arin

Having Courage

Just as the universe doesn’t become less complex, life doesn’t tend to get easier. But you get stronger. You learn to show up more, cope better, and be truer and more conscious amid the judgement and hardship.

Obstacles become smaller and the path is your own.

Trust yourself, lean forward. The next level opens after your next courageous step.

I pulled from Brendon Burchard, if you have not read High Performance Habits, I am highly recommend reading.

Courage is something I see in each one of our clients whether they think so or not.

It takes courage to walk through our doors.

It takes courage to do that first workout.

It takes courage to keep showing up each day, week, year.

It takes courage to make changes to your life for the better.

Honoring the struggle is an important part of the journey.

Michelle Obama said, “You should never view your challenges as a disadvantage. Instead, it’s important for you to understand that your experience facing and overcoming adversity is actually one of your biggest advantages.”

If you take anything away from my message today, have faith in the future.

Just because the sky is cloudy doesn’t mean there is no sun.

Have courage and faith as you walk through your day today and as always, we are here for you.

Let me know if you need help.

Arin

Assessing Progress

One of the most important steps in anyone’s health and wellness journey is measuring progress. Otherwise how do you know if what you are doing is working?

We may get up morning after morning do our routine, feel pretty good about it, then step on the scale and nothing is happening.

This is super frustrating.

Or nutrition, you have been eating reasonably well, meal planning, etc. but again you step on the scale and nothing or very little movement.

This can be a vicious process and extremely frustrating.

Ultimately it can be defeating enough that we give up.

We get it.

That’s why it is so important to assess progress consistently with a few measurements.

We do rely on the scale, but we also rely on body fat assessments with ultrasound technology (assesses lean & fat tissue) and circumference measurements.

If you only step on the scale it may or may not tell you the whole picture of what is happening.

The last thing you want to do is kill yourself each workout, eat reasonably well, then feel defeated every time you get on the scale.

Also getting on a consistent schedule to assess progress. If we step on the scale everyday it can be too frequent and more of a mind game than anything.

Setting up intentional time, every 4-6 weeks is better for seeing the big picture and true results. Week to week our weight can fluctuate from water, sodium, illness, etc.

It does require us to be patient but add up enough 4-6-week time frames = big results.

Daily weigh ins can be helpful to keep us in check, but look at what it is doing for you mentally. If it is doing more harm than good, consider adjusting. If it is a daily check in and not a mental game, fine.

If you need help understanding if you are making progress, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

We can help and more than anything talk through what is happening or not happening.

Slow and steady does win the race in most cases, along with consistent effort. If you need help with what it needs to look like for you personally shoot me a message!

Have an awesome day,

Arin

Being Satisfied

Hope you are having a great day today!

Today I wanted to talk about being satisfied. There has been an ongoing mantra of “Never be satisfied”.

Keep pushing forward, more, etc.

While I don’t disagree with setting goals and always striving for more, there is an important part of the journey that can get missed.

Being satisfied, does not mean settling.

Those who are never satisfied are never at peace.

Being dissatisfied will leave you obsessing about the negative and it is a spiral.

We will miss out on life and it will prevent us from gratitude.

For me personally this has been a huge part of growth. I remember when we first started our business and people would say enjoy the journey.

I was not enjoying the journey, I was always striving for perfection, always dissatisfied with performance. While there is nothing wrong with having a high standard, when you are always beating yourself up it will cause anxiety over mistakes and optimal performance never happens.

It is so much easier to be dissatisfied and we are wired by nature to see what is wrong.

Seeking excellence and experiencing satisfaction are not mutually exclusive.

Let me say this once more being satisfied does not mean settling. It simply means accepting and taking pleasure in what is.

Allowing yourself to feel contentment whether or not a thing is complete or perfect.

“Life is short, so decide to enjoy it. Instead of discontent, bring joy and honor to what you do. I promise you’ll start feeling more alive, motivated and fulfilled.” – Brendon Buchard High Performance Habits

There is a reason we start each staff meeting by going around the room stating what is good both business and personal.

Start noticing what’s going well, appreciate your blessings, enjoy the journey, and record your wins.

Dedicated to your success,

Arin

Important Topic – Inflammation

I have a super important topic to bring to you today and honestly, I could write for hours on this topic. I will keep it condensed for today.

Inflammation is something we are not talking enough about.

I am sure at some point we have all felt our joints ache or we felt puffy, maybe your rings would not go on. This could possibly be short term inflammation and we can relatively feel better after we move around and drink a couple glasses of water.

There is another side of inflammation that is long term and we may not realize what is actually happening inside our body.

Maybe our joints ache every day. We feel puffy every day. Or do you feel depressed, have IBS, chronic disease, I could go on.

Maybe stress is at an all time high and it doesn’t look like it will be letting up anytime soon.

We start behaviors such as excessive drinking, eating processed quick and easy foods — the spiral starts.

This all leads us down a path of increased inflammation in our body and to put it in simple terms it’s not good and it’s not good long term especially when it comes to disease. (Heart disease, diabetes, cancer…)

Now I don’t want to be all negative, you can reverse the effects of inflammation TODAY!

Here are several things that are worth doing:

Avoid: Sugary Beverages, Refined Carbs, Desserts, Processed Meat, Processed Snack Foods, Alcohol

Instead Eat: Fruits, Vegetables, Healthy Fats, Fish, Nuts, Peppers, Dark Chocolate, Turmeric, Fenugreek, Cinnamon, Green Tea

Poor sleep has been documented as another way to increase inflammation. Try to get to bed earlier and set the stage for restful sleep. Aim for 7-9 hours of sleep.

Then being active. Making sure to be intentional about the movement you do everyday is a must. We are losing muscle each year we age, use it or lose it.

Also taking a good fish oil along with some herbs such as Turmeric have been very helpful in reducing inflammation. Drink water, shoot for half your body weight in ounces per day or more depending on activity and temperature.

Bottom Line: we need to be aware of what is happening in our body and fuel our body well. With all the stressors of life– control what you can control. Your nutrition is up to you. Always ask is this fueling my body or is it hurting my body?

Activity is huge when it comes to helping inflammation, but it needs to be appropriate. Do workouts that are part of a larger plan. Random is random and you’ll get random results!

As always, we are here for you when you are ready. Shoot me a message back if you need some help.

Arin

I’ve been looking at food journals…

One part of our system in helping a client is looking at a food log. We have the individual track all food and beverage intake in an app called my Fitness Pal for a few weeks.

We want to see what a client is currently doing and based on their individual goal, provide recommendations.

This tool is helpful for most but not all. (I’ll explain more later)

One of the biggest things that happens without us even saying a word is awareness. A client may see that they were underestimating how many calories they were consuming.

Or they may say that food item was not worth it, etc.

I know even for myself when I was getting down to my lowest body fat, I tracked everything and found what I needed to do see my ultimate results. (I had a little popcorn fix each night that was keeping me from getting to 16% body fat – cut it and boom!)

By looking at log we can take a bird’s eye approach and see the whole day and then a whole week.

I never expect it to be perfect and it doesn’t need to be to see results.

Most of the time it is very small tweaks, focusing on this vs that.

Or we can see behaviors and we ask questions, were you stressed, were you working late, are you willing to cook, if not here are some options.

Its never a one size fits all approach.

One spot that has helped a few clients recently is reducing sugar intake. Please note the word is reduce.

It is unrealistic to say you are never going to consume sugar again.

It is in EVERYTHING!

Even the baby yogurts I thought would be a good thing for Lyvia have 7 added sugar grams no wonder she devoured it!

My take on sugar is to be mindful and reduce. Not eliminate.

Also look at it from an added sugar vs naturally occurring.

If there is added sugar it is processed.

Before anyone goes off the deep end, sugar is a complex molecule that we need in our diets and it is not the sole reason for disease or obesity. But it is important to take a look at consumption and for most of us reducing is helpful.

As with everything, food logging is not a one size fits all approach. For some clients it’s a stressor and one more thing to do.

Or it is not a true picture of what is being consumed.

Again, I never want someone to think it is an end all be all approach, it can be helpful for most for a certain amount of time.

Awareness, seeing the overall picture and making small tweaks!

Let me know if you need help!

We are here for you.

Dedicated to your success,

Arin