Recipe: Pumpkin Pie Shakeology! This sounds YUM

If you don't have Shakeology yet order some and get it via Home Direct so you don't have to pay shipping costs for the rest of your life. You'll also get two free workouts, a free shaker cup, and free recipe cards with your Home Direct order: Shakeology - Passion Fitness

Put a little Halloween cheer into your Shakeology this season. In addition to all the amazing Shakeology ingredients, you'll also get the nutritional benefits of pumpkin, which contains lutein, fiber, and alpha and beta carotene. Plus, the healthy polyphenols in cinnamon help regulate blood sugar levels. You'll get all the taste of pumpkin pie...without turning your butt into a pumpkin.

1 scoop chocolate Shakeology
1 cup rice, soy, almond, or low-fat milk (plain or vanilla)
1/2 cup canned pumpkin, unsweetened
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
Ice (optional)
Combine all ingredients in blender and combine until smooth. You can substitute pumpkin pie spice for the cinnamon and nutmeg or add more pumpkin for a thicker shake. Makes 1 serving.

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Nutritional Information (with low-fat milk):

Calories: 284
Protein: 27 g
Fiber: 7 g
Carbs: 40 g
Fat Total: 3.5 g
Saturated Fat: 2 g

Tom Birkenmeyer: "when I'm 85" an excerpt from a Tony Horton note - read this! It will click with you

This is an excerpt taken from a note that Tony Horton wrote called, "When I'm 85". You can read the whole thing if you like right here: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=162842842403&id=44994367247&ref=mfhttp://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=162842842403&id=44994367247&ref=mf

This one particular paragraph I think is just pure truth and brilliance...

"If you're reading this and you're younger than 50 and haven't made movement and healthy eating a priority yet, then do yourself a favor and get busy because the clock is ticking and the last third of you life will be bleak. Look around at the people in your life who've made it to 60, 70 and 80 who haven't taken care of themselves. What do you see? Issues. Lots of issues. Is that any way to live your life? Trying to solve these issues with pills, potions and processed foods? I think not. Consistency, Variety, Intensity and Curiosity are the keys to lifelong health and fitness. If you mix it up, you'll avoid the pitfalls of aches, injuries and the fear of failure as you get older.

The Future ~ Coming Soon. Bring it Now! " - Tony Horton

Post P90X workout video... I'm out of Breath!

Two years of P90X by Beachbody, no gym or personal trainer, and it's still kickin my butt and getting the job done. Are you still waiting to get into GREAT shape for real? I didn't get into great shape in a short period of time by joining a gym or working with a personal trainer. Join me! Lets do this finally: http://PassionFitness.info



Tom

An impressive read about affective invitation techniques

I was really impressed with this article by Dennis Bay because these are JUST SOME of the same methods that I and other team beachbody coaches use and we are indeed helping lots of people live healthier lives and being compensated for it quite handsomely!

To see what I'm doing go to my Passion Fitness website. It may be for you and it may not be for you. Let me know if it is for you!

Tom

Source - http://ezinearticles.com/?MLM-Training---Effective-Invitation-Techniques-For-MLM-or-Network-Marketing&id=911984

So I was really excited about my new MLM opportunity and I did not listen to my upline's advice.

I picked up my phone and called one of my best friends!

"Hey man, I have something really important to talk to you about, I can't explain it over the phone, so I am coming over to your place tonight!"

He said ok and I slammed down the phone! I thought to myself "Phew, that wasn't so hard!"

Today, thinking back to what I did back then! "Boy, how stupid I was!"

Because I did no qualifying at all, I just went to my best friend's home, blasted away like a machine gun while he listened to me blasting away.

And after i finally finished blasting away my presentation, flipping my flip chart, demonstrating how my skincare products, yada yada yada!

Man! I think back about it today, I can't believe I actually applied some exfoliant scrub on my best friend's hands! He must have been totally grossed out!

But I actually believed that he would either buy my products or join my business! That obviously did not happen. He just gave me the courtesy of listening to my presentation and at the end of it all, he said "It looks good. You try it first. I'll think about it." But he never bought anything from me, let alone join my business.

So people, you really really must not repeat my mistakes.

Invitation is simple, but you must have the right timing and know what to say! It takes a bit of practice at first, but everyone will be able to get it easily.

Now, let's go back to the step by step process which is to first!

1. Do your names list.

With the advent of the Internet, websites, email and video DVD technology! we no longer have to call our contacts, get them out for a face to face 2 hour presentation and pray that they join our business!

2. Qualify them and sort out the 5 stars from the zero stars, the MLM Leaders from the Time Wasters.

3. Find out their needs using the F.O.R.M technique.

4. Start inviting them according to their needs! I am going to focus on step 4 now.

Technology has automated our "Qualification" process.

Instead of inviting our contacts for a meetup to present the business opportunity, all we have to do is pick up the phone, call their number and say this!

FOR POTENTIAL BUSINESS BUILDERS and MLM Leader type prospects:

YOU: "Hi Dennis, do you have a minute?"

DENNIS: "Yeh sure, what's up?"

YOU: "I have some good news. I just started a new business and I am looking for some business partners. I thought you might be interested in looking at this." DENNIS: "Ok, what's it about?"

YOU: "Ok, tell you what, the business proposal is explained on my website. Are you able to check it later today?"

DENNIS: "Yes sure."

YOU: "You got a pen and paper? Write it down."

DENNIS: "Ok. Go ahead."

YOU: "It's (yourwebsite.com)"

DENNIS: "Ok. Got it."

YOU: "Great, check it out later today and I'll call you back tomorrow. Everything is explained clearly there. Now, time is of the essence, so promise me you will check it today alright?"

DENNIS: "Will do man. I'll check it right now. Talk to you after i see it."

Now, did that sound so hard? Can you pick up the phone, call someone and ask them to check out a website? Of course you can. It's SO EASY.

Now if it's someone you bump into on the street or at an event, just hand out your namecard and do this!

"Here's my namecard and that's my website address, I am looking for business partners, so if you are keen to explore a new business opportunity, check out my website today and give me a call."

Or if you happen to have a DVD video cd with you on hand and you know that this is a 3 to 5 star prospect on your list, just pass them the DVD and say!

"Now this DVD contains my business proposal on video. Watch it today and let me know what you think. Now, I only have 5 copies so I will need this back from you after you have watched it today. I'll be calling you to pick it up from you tomorrow."

Some companies also have a magazine that is designed to explain the business opportunity to the prospects that you lend them to. You can also use that as a invitational tool.

So I hope you get my point here!

Today, we no longer invite people for a BUSINESS PRESENTATION face to face, in a hotel or at the office anymore. It's too HIGH PRESSURE!

Instead, we invite people to:

1. Visit a websiteNow, that's called LOW PRESSURE, HIGH LEVERAGE!

2. Watch a DVD Movie

3. Read a Magazine

Anyone can do it, and you can easily do that to anyone you meet.

Be it someone you met face to face at an event, or someone you chatted up online.

While you are sleeping, your prospect might be researching your website, watching your DVD business presentation or reading about your opportunity, products, company background on your magazine.

In this day and age, if your company does not have all these powerful invitational tools to make your invitation and presentation process totally 100% SIMPLIFIED, AUTOMATED and DUPLICATED!

Either you can continue doing it the OLD SCHOOL way which is! "I have to meet up with you and explain everything!", then you go through a 1-2 hour flipchart presentation or laptop powerpoint presentation and after that, it's a 50/50 chance.

It's either a YES or a NO. But you have already invested 2 hours and that time could have been spent calling another qualified prospect, giving out a namecard, DVD or magazine.

"Direct Salespeople Sell, Network Marketers SORT!"

What the NEW SCHOOL MLM Leaders do is to sort through their ever-growing list of qualified prospects by leveraging simple, automated, duplicable tools that do all the presenting and convincing for them.

Today, I will never meet up with anyone who has not gone through my qualification process. Until that suspect has seen my website, watched my DVD or read my magazine and they convinced themselves that they are really really interested in joining my business! I will not agree to meet up. Because I can be inviting more people into my qualification funnel.

Think about it like a funnel, that channels all the people I invite to go through that funnel, where they get qualified step by step and when they come out at the other end, they will be calling me. And all I have to do is answer their questions and clear up their doubts.

Then finally I just need to pop the BIG question, "So are you an A-Big Business Builder, B-Small Business Builder or C-Product User?"

So if you're someone who is still stuck in the OLD SCHOOL days! and you feel that you will be happier if you can build your business using the NEW SCHOOL ways that I am talking about above, either you wait for your company to embrace technology and create these systems and tools or! you create those tools yourself!

Else you might want to consider looking for a company that does provide these systems.

As I mentioned earlier, inviting is so simple, that anyone can do it. And now, with the low pressure methods above!

I am sure anyone in MLM or Network Marketing will be able to invite a prospect to understand more about their business.

A message from our founder, an Invitation to join our mission

I joined two years ago. It's been handsomely rewarding in so many ways. Watch this video! Our founder is taking a direct approach at talking to you, to reach out and invite you to join our cause and at the same time create an opportunity of a lifetime for yourself. Write or call me after you watch this short video.



Tom
Email: tom@beachbodycoach.com
Phone: 262 344-1733
Facebook: http://facebook.com/metalpalace

Personal training, tutoring, and nutrition services offered

I am four times stronger and more flexible than I use to be and so are others that I have helped.


I can help you:
- Loose weight
- Firm up
- Add muscle
- Find new sustainable energy
- Look the way you've always wanted to look
- Feel better
- Gain new flexibility and mobility
- Turn up your metabolism
- Learn how to eat right to fuel your workouts. NO STARVATION DIETS (your workouts & results will suffer if you don't eat enough).
- Set positive and realistic goals
- Increase balance and coordination (as you age this will become increasingly important to keep your mind from slipping).
- Learn motivational techniques that could mean the difference between failure or success
- Plug you into support systems that will help hold you accountable

I have made huge leaps and bounds within my own fitness and have helped many others accomplish all of their own goals as well. I can help YOU to. Rates range anywhere from only $2.99 to $119. Write me.

Tom
Passion Fitness
facebook.com/metalpalace

"It's the set of the Sail" by Larry Zimberb from Beachbody

Larry Zimberg is one of the many people that I get to learn from. This is one of his latest writings and it's brilliant! It's far too brilliant not to share with anyone and everyone. I hope you enjoy the read and I hope it resonates...

"The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people."
—Theodore Roosevelt

The number one skill to have in our business is not selling skills; it's people skills. The ability to get someone to trust you, like you, and want to do business with you is the key. Personal development is the one single component that will define your path to success more than any other.

"Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're probably right."
—Henry Ford

Sometimes we become so fixed on the how-to's that we fail to recognize that there is a far more telling and essential component needed in order to be successful. Any skill you may need can be acquired. It's the attitude that precedes it that will determine how far you go.

"Failure is an inside job. So is success. If you want to achieve you have to win the war in your thinking first."
—Brian Tracy

So many people brush off Personal Development, and as a result when they have disappointments about recruiting or sales, they quit. If they had worked to make themselves stronger and developed the right philosophy and attitude, these temporary minor setbacks would not have fazed them in the least. It's much easier to keep moving forward when you have the right attitude.

"Ninety percent of those who fail are not actually defeated, they simply quit."
—Paul J. Meyer

Just because you've failed doesn't mean you're a failure. The road to success is never a straight line. It's a series of twists and turns, ups and downs, successes and failures. Whether the inevitable obstacles you'll encounter become stumbling blocks or stepping stones depends entirely on your philosophy. The shortest route to your success is found in overcoming any and every obstacle in your path.

"Nothing is stronger than habit."
—Ovid

Successful people form habits that feed their success, instead of habits that feed their failure. That is why it's every bit as important to consistently put good things in our head—just as we do our body—if we want to consistently experience good results. And like your physical transformation, it won't happen all of a sudden; it takes a little time. But with a plan, a desire to grow, and a simple formula which I'll outline below, the right habits and attitude can be developed and nourished, and that will lead you to the right results.

There is no single more powerful force than the potential of what is already inside you. The best way to strengthen, grow, and reach that potential is through personal development.

So here is an easy way, and a daily plan, for you to follow that will create lasting, real change and put you on track to realizing your true potential.

Read 10 pages a day of a good personal development book, and listen to 15 minutes of a good audio.

Reading 10 pages a day will give you a daily dose and a steady stream of power, truth, motivation, and courage that will allow you to take command of your life and summon the inner strength to take action—despite any fears—so you can create the life you desire.

Now let's look down the road. Ten pages a day is 300 pages a month and 3,600 pages a year. That's 15 to 20 powerful books you'll have read over the next 12 months! That simple daily discipline, compounded over time, will result in huge positive rewards for you that go way beyond this business and will be a tremendous asset to you in building not just a successful business, but also a successful life.

Listen to 15 minutes a day of a good audio. Turn time spent in the car into Drive Time University. Don't drive? Load a book on CD or motivational audio onto your iPod and build some mental muscle as you exercise. Either way, it's an easy thing to do that will produce some positive growth and won't interfere time-wise with what you've already got going on.

Personal development is about you becoming a better you, so you can experience the kind of life that you always knew you were meant to live. And using this formula, you can easily fit a program of incorporating personal development into your life.

Can you do it? Yes. Will you do it? That, of course, is up to you. But IF you do it, you will enrich your life in ways that reach far beyond this business and uncover yet one more way to pass on a message to others that will certainly enhance their lives as well.

They say the winds of life blow on us all; it's how you set your sail that makes the difference.

- Larry Zimberg from Beachbody


Tom
Passion Fitness

Portion Controlling Myths About Nutrition Debunked

I want to go over a couple myths about portion controlling meals that millions of people fall prey to and struggle with weight loss as a result of.


Myth - "I ate way too much/little for lunch today. I'll just make up for that by eating less/more for dinner"

Reality - The body is only capable of absorbing so much nutrients or calories in one sitting. You cannot make up by eating less or eating more food in the next meal; the body doesn't work like that. If you go over that threshold of what can be absorbed and metabolized in one sitting then those nutrients have a higher propensity to add to fat accumulation and you could feel lethargic. If you don't eat enough then you risk starving your bodies cells of nutrients before you eat again and possibly crashing if you workout between those meals. It's really a balancing act you must perform here to find that happy medium between eating too much and too little at meal time. You'll find that through trial and error and making small changes till you get there. Once you do find that middle ground you'll find it easier to not over eat at meal time because you won't be starved. You'll also crank up your metabolism and your workout performance will be enhanced for even further gains in your fitness!

Myth - "I need to protein load to build muscle so I'm going to take 50 grams of a protein supplement right after my workout"

The same is true for individual nutrients as it is for over all calories. The body can only absorb and metabolize so much protein till it has a propensity to spill over into fat accumulation. The average maximum grams of protein that a person can absorb in one sitting is only 30 grams or less. Whatever your maximum capacity to absorb protein is; once you cross that threshold you place an un necessary burden on your kidneys and you increase the odds of putting on more body fat. Besides, after a vigorous workout the body mainly wants water and fast absorbing carbohydrates. Protein is secondary to that. An ideal blend of water, carbs and protein after a vigorous workout is 8 - 12 oz of water with 4 grams of fast absorbing carbs for every 1 gram of fast absorbing (usually whey protein) protein.

To keep it simple just remember to do a few things regarding portion controlling your food.

- If you don't have any idea of how many calories to eat a day to loose weight you need to figure that out first. Recalculate once a week using this fitness calculator that I want you to bookmark. As your body changes so does your calorie requirements:

- Eat at least five or six times per day.
- Don't ever go more than three or four hours without eating anything.
- Avoid eating more than your body is capability of absorbing and metabolizing in one sitting. For most people that maximum calorie count can be anywhere from 400 to 800 calories in a single meal.

Follow up to this article with an incredible article I wrote on Simplifying your meal planning for vibrant health: http://tombirkenmeyer.blogspot.com/2009/10/simplify-your-meal-planning-for-vibrant.html

Once you get your nutrition right then you have just become your own nutrition expert to maintain vibrant health for the rest of your life! Isn't that alone worth the early on small pains of discipline?

Tom
Passion Fitness

Simplify Your Meal Planning For Vibrant Health and better results from your workouts Performance!

We tend to make our nutrition really complicated because of the vast amounts of data scientists have accumulated over time. If that sort of thing interests you, you could take a more scientific approach but if you are like most of us who just want to know how to eat right to live better then just learn a little bit about the three macro-nutrients, timing, and portion controlling your meals. That's all it takes to eat right!

The three macro-nutrients you should know about are carbohydrates, fats and proteins. These are the only nutrients that contain calories, so partitioning and portion controlling them plays an important role in planning your diet. Proteins are the building blocks of all the bodies cells. They are also a major component of enzymes, hormones, and antibodies. Protein is the multi tasking nutrient! Carbohydrates do many things such as help utilize fat for energy, enhance brain and nerve health, provide dietary fiber etc. but their main roll in planning your diet is that they increase insulin levels which in turn deliver needed nutrients to the bodies cells. Fat is the chief form of energy in the body, provides fat soluble vitamins, insulates and protects organs, and can enhance the health of your heart and blood vessels or create fatally unhealthy heart and blood vessels depending on the quality of fats that dominate your diet. The most important modification to ones diet one could make is the quality of the fat that dominates ones diet. To learn more about choosing foods with higher quality fat sources for optimum health visit my page on "Cholesterol, then fats and triglycerides"

Timing your nutrients plays an important role in how you plan your meals because different nutrients cause different physiological occurrences in the body. For example, ideally for breakfast you want carbohydrates and protein to get your blood sugars and metabolism in check after eight hours of fasting. This will set the tone for the rest of your day! The easiest and most effective way to do that is to drink a Shakeology which will set the stage from the beginning of your day to eat good and feel good all day long. For lunch, ideally, you want the bulk of your food to be proteins and carbohydrates to facilitate your blood sugar levels and to provide fuel for the bulk of your day that still remains. For dinner the bulk of your nutrients should come from proteins and fresh vegetables. Carbohydrates are no longer needed in bulk because you're day is coming to an end. Any extra carbohydrates that are not burned by your activity will be more easily stored as fat.

Time your nutrients for your workouts as well as for the time of day! This is important regarding when to consume specific kinds of carbohydrates. There are fast absorbing carbs (high glycemic) and slow absorbing carbs (low glycemic). Save your fast absorbing carbs for breakfast and immediately following a vigorous workout. Eating a fast absorbing carb for dinner will spike your already stable blood sugar levels too much too fast. You're body will probably not be able to metabolize that much in such a short amount of time resulting in an overflow of nutrients to be more likely stored as fat.

Eat at least five or six times per day. Every three hours is ideal. If you wait four hours between meals you are weakening your metabolism because by that time your body automatically switches into starvation mode by breaking down muscle cells to extract protein for energy instead of glucose and fat (the bodies intended sources of energy).

An ideal daily eating schedule in bulk nutrient values:
Breakfast - carbs and proteins (perfect time of day for a Shakeology)
Mid morning snack - proteins
Lunch - carbs and proteins (feel free to mix in some vegetables here)
Mid afternoon snack - proteins
Dinner - proteins and vegetables
Optional night time snack - proteins and or vegetables

The most important variable in having control over your body weight is calories in are equal calories out. If you burn more calories than you eat you will loose weight and vice versa. If you portion control your meals you can have more control over your ability to loose or gain weight. A generally accepted safe caloric deficit to loose weight is 10%. If you're daily caloric needs to maintain your current weight is equal to 2,000 calories then an 1,800 calorie per day diet is ideal to loose weight at a safe rate. If you don't already have an idea as to how many calories you should be consuming daily then figure that out first on this Fitness Calculator. Recalculate once per week. As your body changes your calorie requirements will change.

Take the time and put forth the sometimes tedious effort to learn how to apply good nutritional habits that work for you and the desired results you’re going for. In time it will become second nature! Once you have conquered that task it's an invaluable education you will take it with you for the rest of your life and even teach others how to do the same for themselves. Priceless!!!

Tom
Passion Fitness

My routine to Live FREE of illness and disease

This whole routine I programmed is designed to help keep a person healthy and living illness FREE.



I haven’t been sick in 2 ½ years and counting. I use to get sick, violently sick several times a year with the changing seasons. Everyone I know right now in Oct. of 2009 is either sick with the flu or a nasty cold except me. I drink my daily Shakeology, I eat reasonable most of the time and I exercise regularly. But I also do something so amazing first thing every morning that I can actually physically and mentally feel keeping me from getting sick every time I do it. I don’t even have a name for my little impromptu routine but maybe someday I will. I video recorded myself doing my routine, that seems to work so well for me, to share with as many people as possible in hopes of giving you something new to think about and maybe even try regularly at your own discretion. If I help a few more people repel all cause illness during a change of seasons then that would make me a very happy fitness enthusiast :)

Some tips:
Do this even before flossing!

When doing squats retract your shoulder blades, open up your chest, sit back in heels but don’t fall back, keep your back straight, engage all core muscle groups to stabilize your body, don’t flex your knees more than 90 degrees, and keep your mouth as far away from your butt as possible. No joke! Visualize keeping your mouth far away from your butt and that will help you maintain all of those other variables I mentioned that makes for a good squat.

On all of these movements, postures and sequences I’m lifting my chest, opening my chest, and rolling my shoulders back. This is what allows the cardio vascular system and circulator system to jump start and work to help prevent you from getting sick. Focus on opening up your chest more and eventually it will become second nature to you. Don’t just arbitrarily do these movements, postures and sequences. Focus on those muscles being stretched so you get a better stretch and a better facilitation of nutrients to those joints and muscles. Otherwise you’re defeating the purpose of this routine; leaving yourself more vulnerable to all cause illness.

Most importantly; Breath! Breathe long deep slow breaths through all movements. You need to do this several times a day to saturate the blood with oxygen. Oxygen = energy and nourishment for the bodies cells. You also keep moisture from building up in your lungs by exercise the full capacity of your lungs. Moisture build up in the lungs leads to bacteria which leads to sickness. I’m not sure how well the microphone picked up the sound of my breath but if you listen closely you can hear me taking nice therapeutic like full breaths.

My first thing out of bed early morning impromptu Routine that I don’t have a name for yet:
- Drink a glass of water and rub the sleep out of your eyes, yawn etc.

- Huggers with neck rolls followed by another yawn and some funky stretch I did with my arms and chest. I’ll call it the chicken stretch ;) It felt right at the time. This is impromptu after all ;)

- Reach up and clasp your hands above your head. For all of these reaching movements make sure you “scoop” your abs so that your low back is not hyper extending. Reach up towards the sky and stretch your whole body out in a comfortable way early in the morning.

- Reach up again without clasping your hands together; bring arms back down in a good morning descending stretch. Pretend there is a wall behind you that you are standing against and you are scraping the wall with your elbows and wrists.

- Two bi lateral straight arm raises and back down again. At the top do a toe raise to begin waking the legs up.

- Widen your stance a little more than shoulder width apart and lower yourself into a sumo stance prayer squat. Remember to keep the shoulders back, stick out your chest and open it up even in prayer.

- Two more bi lateral straight arm raises starting in a sumo stance prayer squat.

- Lower yourself back into sumo stance prayer squat and abduct both arms 90 degrees and hold for a few breaths.

- Bring straight arms straight out in front; still in a sumo squat with a straight back; hinge forward. Come as close as you comfortably can to bringing your arms and trunk parallel to the floor. Try to create a straight line from your finger tips to your waist. Hold for a few breaths.

- Bring arms around back and over head; clasp hands together; still bent over. You can round your back here if you would like.

- Straighten your back out and extend your trunk upright allowing arms to come down behind you. While upright keep your hands clasped, pull your shoulders back, and keep your chest open; stretch your chest muscles.

- Bring feet together, bring hands to prayer, and follow sequence of arm movements in the video.

- Transition into chair pose as I demonstrate in the video.

- Come up out of chair pose and hyper extend back (optional, but really all of these movements are optional)

- Follow video for arm movement and prayer sequences.

- Bend forward at the hips like a hinge for trunk flexion; keeping back straight and shoulder blades squeezed together; arms abducted 90 degrees for a breath.

- Allow arms to come down toward the ground and round the back for forward fold for a breath.

- Straighten back out and squeeze shoulder blades together again for a breath and alternate between flat back and forward fold with your back rounded for a breath each.

- On the final forward fold hold it for a few breaths. With each exhalation see if you can reach a little lower while maintaining straight legs. Flex your quads to help keep straight legs.

- Come back up, roll up one vertebrae at a time; when you get to rolling your head up couple that with rolling your shoulders back and sticking your chest out.

- Clasp hands behind your butt, straighten arms, and open your chest for a nice stretch.

- Topas stretch. Palms should be facing up and arms should be straight.

- Take a full, slow, deep breath with prayer hands. Take one last full, slow, deep breath in mountain pose or the anatomical position. Open your chest up and don’t shrug your shoulders.

- Do anything else you need to do to take care of yourself and prime yourself for your day.


That’s it! I bet you feel better after doing that right? You’re probably even ready to eat breakfast by now. If you have it in you to do a light workout because you have extra calories to burn go for it! Just don’t do any one single movement, pose, or exercise that you can’t continuously perform for longer than three minutes or it’s too intense. With that kind of intensity without any food in you yet you risk catabolizing your own muscle tissue and weakening your metabolism.

Just some of the key benefits to my first thing out of bed early morning routine:
Allows for a gradual, calming transition from morning “grogginess” to waking up and feeling energized.

Jump starts the cardio vascular system and circulatory system; strengthening immune response; helps preventing all cause illness.

Improves mental focus and enhances your ability to alleviate/manage stress for a more productive day.

Energy distribution throughout the bodies cells; consequently you feel better with more sustainable energy throughout the day beginning at the very beginning of the day.

Lubricates and nourishes all major joints of the body; giving a person a better feeling of mobility.

More easily able to eat and digest breakfast.


For more info on Living Healthy visit my Website: Passion Fitness
Tom


Please note: the information given on my website is not intended to diagnose any medical condition or replace the advice of a healthcare professional. Always consult with your physician before you begin any exercise program. If you experience any pain or difficulty with exercise or diet, stop and consult your healthcare provider.

Opportunity comes knocking! This is so cool it's beyond words

This is derived from an earlier video I made about motivating large groups of people and the concept of leveraging. If you haven't watched that video first, do it or you will be lost in this one! Watch the first video here: http://tombirkenmeyer.blogspot.com/2009/09/how-to-motivate-large-numbers-of-people.html

Find more info about Opportunity and living healthier: Passion Fitness
Tom

There is no such thing as Empty Calories

A calorie is a specific measurement of heat.

According to Sports, Science and Medicine a calorie is a "Unit of work and energy. One calorie is the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 g of water by 1°C at normal pressure."

In the body a calorie count is a measurement of energy derived from a food source. In this context a calorie is a calorie and has the same value of energy whatever the quality of the food source it is derived from.

Those low calorie fad diets are dangerous. For example, eating only enough food to derive 800 calories worth of energy for the bodies cells is not nearly enough to sustain the energy demands of your body for an entire day even if you live a completely inactive life style (unless you're a very small person). You need more than 600 or 800 calories in the course of a day or you will waste away til death if you're consistent enough with it. To figure out roughly how many calories you should be consuming use this fitness calculator and re calculate once per week.

Now that we know calories are simple because the value of a calorie is always the same from one to the next. Regarding calories All you need to pay attention to is the quantity of calories, not the quality because calorie quality is irrelevant!

Nutrients are the complex factor here, not calories. Nutrients vary in quality from one food source to the next. Some foods are more nutrient dense than others and contain different kinds of nutrients along with different partitions of those nutrients from one to the next. It is a lot to monitor! Generally the body wants the foods that are more nutrient dense and all natural ingredients. Nutrient dense food is far more useful and metabolized by the bodies cells than food with empty nutrients.

If you're interested in eating right for your body so the body can heal itself and prevent illness then avoid the nutrient empty foods such as ice berg lettuce, white colored mushrooms, and foods with artificial sweeteners and trans fats. Instead eat nutrient dense whole foods such as the green leafy lettuce, the various brown colored mushrooms, and foods with all natural ingredients.

The phrase, "empty calories" should be replaced with empty nutrients in everyone's vocabulary. It would clear up a lot of misguided confusion about the "empty calorie" debate.

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