Burn 500 extra calories this week!

With the holidays rapidly approaching, it's time to lay a solid fitness and weight loss base, so you can indulge in a little extra pumpkin pie later on.

Fad diets, starvation, and endless cardio sessions aren't the right way to lose weight. The real equation for losing your gut is no secret: Work off more than you put in your mouth.

A few tricks can stoke your metabolism and give your weight loss a little boost. One of the best weight loss tips is to drink more water and make sure you fill the glass with ice. Ice water is scientifically proven to burn more calories than room temperature water alone.

The science behind this phenomena? The body burns more calories when it has to raise the temperature of ice water to your body temperature. If you drink the recommended eight, 8 ounce glasses of water, you should burn an extra 70 calories a day.

Not only does ice water burn more calories, but it makes you feel more full. Many times when you think you're hungry, you're just thirsty. Fill your mouth with ice water instead of processed snack foods and your pants will be fitting looser before next week's blog entry.

Drink up!

9:32 PM -

Worrying less can lengthen your life

Don't worry, be happy.  It's more than just a one hit wonder, it's a way to prolong your life.

A recently published study by Purdue University tracked 1,663 middle age and older men over 12 years.  Those who scored the 50th percentile in neuroticism, and whose neurotic tendencies worsed by 20% over the years, were 40% more likely to die during the study period than those men whose neuroticism remained stable.

Neuroticism is defined as excessive worry over minor events and setbacks, as well as a tendency to overpredict negative conseuences and underpredict one's coping ability.

Links to Illness

Researchers have linked stress, anxiety and depression to a host of maladies, compromised immune systems, ulcers, headaches and more.  Stress can even lead to behavioral changes resulting in obesity and alcoholism.

Anxiety is the #1 diagnosis in psychiatry.  There is an overlap with depression and you can have anxiety and depression, they can cohabitate but they are two separate diagnoses.

We'll always have something to cause anxiety, but when it goes from worry to nonstop worry, then you really should evaluate what's going on around you and seek to make positive changes.  Worrying about worrying can perpetuate the worry.  You can't prove that you can worry yourself to death, but worrying can lead to a state of frenzy and exhaustion and can cause primary or secondary health changes or relationship changes that can shorten your life.

How do you feel?

What you feed your mind matters.  If you feed it inspirational and affirmative material, it will help you create habitual ways of thinking that are positive and healthy.

Healthy Living Pillars

Health is a result of proper cellular function. Disease is the result of abnormal cell function. It really is that simple. The brain controls and regulates, through the nervous system, cellular function in the body. Interference with the transmission of the electro-chemical signals that connect your brain, the master control system for the body, to the cells, tissues, organs and systems that make up the human body can have a detrimental effect on health. 

Chemical, nutritional and emotional factors can also affect the normal, natural functioning of the body at the cellular level.  There is a growing body of evidence that optimal health results from a combination of many factors including: a fully functioning nervous system, proper nutrition and hydration, exercise, natural sleep and emotional well being. In the next few days I will be posting entries on the five pillars of health: Nutrition, Sleep, Exercise, Stress reduction, Preventive health.