A little laughter goes a long way...

Have you ever laughed so hard you cried, or laughed until your side ached? Remember the feeling you had afterwards—that feeling of complete joy and happiness, accompanied by a ‘happy pain’ in your cheeks from smiling from ear-to-ear. After spending the day with my fun-loving, full-of-spirit 14 month old, I can absolutely remember that feeling! These warmly welcomed symptoms illustrate the domino effect humor has on our amusement level, but did you know that the same laughter that makes you happy also makes you healthy? As a health professional, I know this...but do you? Just in case you didn't, I wanted to take this opportunity to grab your attention and share what a good hearty laugh can really do for you...

1. Lower your blood pressure: Research shows that people who laugh regularly have lower blood pressures than the average individual. This is due in part to the body’s initial spike in blood pressure as a result of extreme laughter, followed by an extreme calming period where the pressure decreases to levels below normal. Because of this, breathing becomes deeper, sending oxygen enriched blood throughout the body.
2. Change your biomechanical state: Not only does laughter increase our attentiveness, heart rate, and pulse, but it also increases infection fighting antibodies while also reducing our stress hormone level.
3. Protect your heart: According to a study done at the University of Maryland Medical Center, laughter and having a good sense of humor during stressful situations can alleviate the damaging physical effects of distressing hormones (depression, anger, anxiety, and stress) that are linked to heart disease.
4. Improve brain function and relieve stress: As we laugh, both hemispheres of the brain are stimulated, enhancing our ability to learn. Laughter also keeps the brain alert—and in turn allows people to retain more information—as it eases muscle tension and psychological stress.
5. Give your body a great workout: Simply pay attention to your abs after a good giggle session—they’ll speak for themselves! Laughter not only strengthens the abdominals, but it also tones intestinal functioning, benefiting our digestion and absorption capabilities. Additionally, it is believed that laughter can burn as many calories as spending several minutes on the exercise bike or rowing machine!
6. Boost your immune system: Activating our natural will to live, laughter also increases our capacity to fight disease as it relaxes the body and reduces problems associated with chronic diseases.
7. Enhance your ability to connect with others: So much energy is wasted focusing on coping with life’s problems—no one person or relationship is perfect. Laughter brings people together as it helps people put things into perspective while lightening life’s burdens.
8. Help replace distressing emotions with desirable feelings: Have you ever noticed how impossible it is to feel anything but happy when you’re laughing? Experiencing humor makes it very difficult to experience anger, anxiousness, sadness, or resentfulness at the same time.
9. Change your behavior: Laughing increases our energy and often provokes us to talk more & make more eye contact with others.
10. Make you feel downright good!: Need there be an explanation?!

So what are the steps we can take to assure more humor in our lives? In addition to smiling, counting your blessings, and spending time with people who make you laugh, you can also gain access to this miracle medicine by simply lightening up (from www.helpguide.org):

• View your life in context. Even world leaders realize they have limited ability to affect others’ lives. While we might think taking the weight of the world on our shoulders is admirable, in the long run it’s unrealistic, unproductive, unhealthy and even egotistical.  
• Be less serious.  Realize that while your ambitions may be noble, being overly serious about them weighs you down and lessens your chances for achieving them.
• Deal with your stress. Stress is a major impediment to humor and laughter.
• Dress less seriously.
• Keep a toy on your desk or in your car.
• Laugh at yourself. Share your embarrassing moments. The best way to take ourselves less seriously is talk about times when we took ourselves too seriously.
• Pay attention to children and emulate them. They are the experts on playing, taking life lightly, and laughing.

Source: http://www.helpguide.org/life/humor_laughter_health.htm

Persevere

This past week has been difficult in more ways than one. More specifically, it's been spiritually & emotionally challenging.

Picture this: you're in a bathroom at work, pumping, reading God's word while impatiently missing your 8 month old and wishing more than anything that you weren't where you were right that minute...when all of a sudden: peace, tranquility, joy, & hope rush over your entire being as you clearly hear God answer you! That was me a mere 5 months ago; the day I accomplished what I had spent a quarter of my lifetime trying to do: wait patiently & quietly for His guidance. As a result, FitKO Health was born! You'd think it'd be scary to leave security, good benefits, the guarantee of a steady income with a little one at home--and if you know me at all, you know that sense of financial security would have otherwise made me hesitant & resist following His instruction--but it was actually the complete opposite. I had total faith and trust in God as he assured me and confirmed his grace by leading my eyes to Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you, the plans to prosper and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." So then began my amazing journey! But I started on such a high, that I truly never thought about how hard (aside from the financial part) it would be to start my own business...

Now picture this: three weeks into the New Year and a new "part time" schedule, spending allll of your "free time" working, feeling guilty and torn about not just playing with the precious little one you desired to be part-time for, as well as not being able to focus the efforts & time you thought you'd now have to being a wife and a homemaker...while all at the same time, struggling to get traction with your business. Yup, that was me through this weekend. Honestly, talked to KC and seriously considered giving up already. But again, God proved ever faithful and I knew better...once I finally waited patiently & quietly to hear Him. James 1 tells us to "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing...Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him." I mean seriously??? WOW! And people, that's a promise to YOU, too!!!!

Just as I'm struggling with a business not gaining traction, I know there are plenty of others out there struggling with ______ not gaining traction in their lives either. Exercising more than ever before or eating healthier and not losing weight, feeling stuck in a stressful job or situation and seeing no end in sight...My friends, it's all about PERSEVERANCE and we are all capable of it through Christ who strengthens us! Rejoice in the hope God has given you with whatever goal you set--you set it because hope was brought to you in that regard, and that hope was not accidental, it was purely purposeful! Then, be patient in the tribulation--all things get harder before they get easier...it's a fact of life but we know from God's promises that through those trials you will be greatly rewarded, so be patient! And last, pray continually! Don't just pray when you feel lost or have given up, pray when things are good or just OK...pray continually and you will find the strength and the answers to PERSEVERE!

1 Corinthians 9:24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.

Keep at your goal! Run that race until the end & don't give up...I promise you, you will be greatly rewarded!!!!

An "easy button" for health?

People are always asking and forever seeking that quick fix for anything and everything in life...including health! Or shall I say, especially for health? Today there are over 100 million American dieters spending over $20 billion a year on what they believe are going to be their weight loss "easy buttons". Man, would I LOVE to get in front of all 100 million of them, look them straight in the eyes and apologize that they believed so much in these diet pills & surgeries that they weren't able to recognize the one true "easy button" for their weight loss goals: believing in themselves!!!!

Yes, it's true, you will need to spend at least some money to get healthy. Buying fresh, whole foods, nutritional shakes, fitness equipment, boot camp passes, gym memberships, workout DVDs, the appropriate attire...it adds up! I know this--I live it! But the difference between those costs and the $20 billion dieters are wasting each year is, quite simply put, a lack of confidence.

Believe me, I get it! I've worked with and have known enough people that have struggled to reach their goal weight; people who have endured so many challenges, road blocks, and sometimes, have just been flat beaten up by life. But just because you've been knocked down once, twice, thirty-thousand times along your weight loss journey doesn't mean YOU can't SUCCEED! It's all about overlooking the "failures" and remembering, uncovering, and rediscovering all of the many successes along the journey! Sure, maybe you're trying Weight Watchers for the 4th time, but rather than viewing that as a "fail" you need to see it as success! Why? You've fallen off the bandwagon 3 times and you're getting back on again: commend yourself for your persistence & believe that your never-give-up-attitude will get you to that goal weight. Don't look back on the times you slipped up and ate too many points or stopped tracking altogether, that'll do nothing but drag you down & make you feel less capable of doing it this time around; think of the days or times you did absolutely awesome on the program...how did it make you feel? What did you do those days to help you succeed? You need to remember these things in order to believe in your abilities, believe in your capabilities, believe in your goals...believe in you!

So can you do that today? Any time something doesn't go right (diet related, exercise related, work related, family related, whatever-related), don't look at what went wrong--look at what went right! If not today, then another day when you were doing the same or a similar and it went as you envisioned. Remember & believe. Remind yourself & believe. Because I promise, if you believe, you will most certainly achieve!