If you’re looking for fireworks in Southern Maryland this Saturday, you have several choices.

Southern Maryland Online has a list of 4th of July activities and fireworks displays for Calvert, St. Mary’s and Charles Counties.

Please pardon the dust while we get things back up and running!

When you hear some of what Sean has to say, maybe it’s not such a good deal! Take a watch, then go to Oprah’s site and the Unthink site and let me know what you think.

You heard me rant about some of these things, now it’s time for someone else. Go Sean! Let me know what you think about Oprah’s role … trying to help people get free food or getting an easy dollar at our expense?

For the next 30 days, I am going to focus on not consuming any GMO crops – The No GMO Challenge, co-sponsored by Real Food Media and the Institute for Responsible Technology. I pretty much do this now, but I know I let a few things slide here and there. If you have no idea what I’m even talking about with GMO, you can go to The No GMO Challenge or Genetically Modified Organisms on wikipedia.

An interesting statistic in a press release is that:

Nearly two-thirds of products on supermarket shelves contain unlabelled
genetically modified ingredients.

This makes it very hard to avoid, if you eat process foods. Jeffrey Smith, a leading expert on the health dangers of GMOs, also has some big statements about GMO’s:

GM crops concentrate corporate control of food, increase herbicide use without increasing average yields, endanger food security, are detrimental to sustainable and organic farming, and trap farmers in a cycle of debt and dependence. They shrink biodiversity, harm beneficial insects, damage soil bacteria, contaminate non-GM varieties, and persist in the environment. The presence of self-propagating genetic pollution might outlast the effects of global warming and nuclear waste.

So I hope you help me to raise awareness about GMO’s and do your body some good, by joining the challenge.

As I have been hiding under a rock and didn’t know anything about this video being passed around on YouTube, you can definitely categorize this as “don’t judge a book by it’s cover”! For a little “can do” spirit and inspiration, checkout this video - Susan Boyle – Singer – Britains Got Talent 2009 (With Lyrics).

Unlike Simon, I REALLY didn’t see that coming!

I like the article because it’s basically a nice-n-tidy summary of how stress starts to affect your body. The body doesn’t care about where the stress is coming from or even if it’s real or perceived. Your body produces a stress response and adds all your stressors up to produce your overall stress level. As a human performance consultant, I have to look at a person’s current level of stress, which we call physiological load, and determine what are the appropriate actions to reduce their load. Most people come expecting to just have exercise thrown at them. When I find people with some of the following stress symptoms, I know it would be irresponsible to just give hard resistance or cardio training, because that would only add to their physiological load.

Stress Symptoms

• Pain of any kind
• Heart disease
• Digestive problems
• Sleep problems
• Depression
• Obesity
• Autoimmune diseases
• Skin conditions, such as eczema

From my experience, I would clarify one thing from the article. Christopher L. Edwards, director of the Behavioral Chronic Pain Management program at Duke University Medical Center, says:

“Stress does not necessarily cause pain, but it exacerbates the [physical] situation that may already be there. It diminishes your ability to cope.”

I have seen a direct correlation between unchecked stress levels and a person’s pain level when they come to see me. Chronically elevated levels of cortisol eventually result in pain. Reducing your overall level of stress is critical for reducing your level of pain.

I like to hear from you about your levels of stress and what symptoms you notice. Until then, relax and take a deep breath!

The other group is young “athletes”. These are kids involved in EVERYTHING! If they don’t participate in every sport or activity possible, then they have already specialized. They are a “volleyball” or “soccer” or “baseball” athletes. Some of the trends I am seeing are no off-season, over focus on skill development, over-trained, and over scheduled. These are mini-stressed out individuals!

The problem here is more complicated. They tend to believe that this is the ONLY way that they can succeed. If they aren’t going at 100 m.p.h., then they are going to be left behind. When I tell them about “backing off” their training and using a model of periodization for their training, they look at me like I have more than one head. After all, according to one of them , “if we aren’t doing it 100% one hundred percent of the time, we’re not really doing it!”

I was reminded of this the other day when I saw this short clip - Over Worked Child Athletes & Young Pros – byPaul Chek at the National Strength and Conditioning Association’s Annual Convention.

As a parent, I cringe at what fate awaits them. Burnout … injury … resentment?! If you are a parent reading this, I encourage to take a hard look at your son’s or daughter routine and ask the question, “is he/she going too hard?” If the answer is even close to yes, I suggest you look to slow then down. It will allow them time to grow, recover, and really develop into the athlete that they can be!

It would be great to hear your feedback on this. Some that I have talked to about this, absolutely disagree with me. So how do you feel? Is this the “necessary path to greatness” or the “road to ruin”?

If you want to make it even better though, you may want to encourage the Mr. E. Bunny to contract with some other companies, besides Hersey and Reeses for next year. We know there are more health benefits to dark chocolate, so you may want to focus him there.

If you haven’t tried chocolate covered blueberries, you may want to try some of them. They’re delicious and full of even more antioxidants than just the dark chocolate alone!

For those of you who want an even more exotic chocolate experience with your Easter Basket, you should try the gourmet chocolates from Vosage Chocolates. You will get a truly unique Easter Basket chocolate-fest!

Have a Happy Easter!

I look forward to as many of you as you can getting out there are doing some morning activity with us!

Click here for race information. To see some pictures from the 2008 Civista 5k Run/Walk you can go to my Facebook page.

After having job titles like Apprentice Carpenter, Subway Sandwich Artist, Door to Door Salesman, and Second Mate, becoming a fitness professional was a bit of a shift in mentality. With my new found profession I realized, that whether I am training a client or watching TV at home, my profession is forever with me. This is a good problem to have. To live a healthy lifestyle in the great United States, one has to be on guard 24/7, 365.

All of my clients are successful in their fields of work and work very hard to do so. Often our biggest hurdle is not getting them to show and work hard at the studio. The hurdle is changing their habits outside of the studio. Every day I see the things my clients are forced to fight against to live a healthy lifestyle. Because they need their food fast, they eat fast food. Because there are bills to pay, they work long into the night and eat too late (or not at all!). Because… (fill your excuse in here)… they couldn’t get their cardio in this week. Because… (find alternate excuse here)… they skipped breakfast… again.

In traveling the world a bit, I have seen many cultures. The Italians, Greeks, and Spanish for example take time every day for siesta. Wouldn’t siesta make finding a healthy lunch easy? Their culture has provided them that luxury. I ask: why are we such workaholics that we can’t even get a healthy lunch? Why has our work become more important than being healthy enough to enjoy our days off…? Having worked my fair share of 50, 60, and even 80 hour weeks I can say that, although a challenge to rival all others, one can be a workaholic and still live a healthy lifestyle.

The point is the only way to truly win the battle against our daily habits is to change our daily habits. The small things make the big difference. Spending 10 minutes to prepare your lunch and daily snacks the night before saves money and the 30 to 45 minutes you’ll need to get to your local lunch spot, eat, pay, and get back to work. Waking 15 minutes earlier allows time for a simple breakfast and ignites your metabolism so you burn more calories all day. Turning off your TV or PC early enough to get the 7 to 9 hours of sleep, recommended by the CDC, allows your brain to store valuable information and your body to repair the day’s stresses. Want some reasons to get more sleep? Check this out these suggestions to get some sleep! Got a problem with eating too many bad snack foods at home? Don’t buy them next time you are at the store. These are a few of the ways to live a healthy lifestyle that have worked for my clients and me. Have you found any that work? Need suggestions to guide you in changing your habits? Post a comment and we’ll work together to fight the battle for a healthier life.

I look forward to hearing from you!!!