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Why “New Year’s Resolutions” Are Destined To Fail.

20 Mar

In just a moment, I’m going to tell you why “New Year’s Resolutions” are destined to fail. But first, I have to tell you this…

I Googled “New Year’s Resolution Statistics”, and what came up #1 was very interesting… It was a set of statistics from The University of Scranton Journal of Clinical Psychology. Here is what they listed were the top 10 New Year’s Resolutions for last year… 2013:

  1. Lose weight
  2. Getting organized
  3. Spend less, save more
  4. Enjoy life to the fullest
  5. Staying fit and healthy
  6. Learn something exciting
  7. Quit smoking
  8. Help others in their dreams
  9. Fall in love
  10. Spend more time with family

All great things. But here is the shocker: The percentage of people who are successful in achieving their resolution is 8%!

What’s that? You think 8% is low? That’s odd; I thought it would be much lower. Here is why…

Success in anything comes from a proper mind-set. In other words, it comes from the way you think. You must think accurately to achieve goals and get positive results.

Waiting until New Year’s Day to start a resolution is completely inaccurate thinking. An accurate thinker would start right now, this very second. Why would you wait a month or a week or even a day to start eating right? Exercising? Stop smoking? Helping others? Spending time with your family and loved ones? Getting organized? Etc. Etc. Etc.

Waiting is procrastination, and procrastination is pure evil when it comes to success and goal achievement.

So, if you REALLY want something, make it part of your life immediately. Take action to get it RIGHT NOW. Don’t stop until you have it. Don’t dream about that someday because for most, that mythical someday keeps getting put off and never arrives.

Pick One Of These Nutrition Tips and Start Losing Weight and Living Healthier…

19 Mar

 

A wise person once said, “Successful people are successful for a reason.” The same is true in reverse… unsuccessful people are unsuccessful for a reason, too. That doesn’t mean if you are unsuccessful at something that it is your fault. On the contrary, many times it is not your fault at all. For example, if you want to lose weight and get in shape and you don’t know the first thing about losing weight and getting in shape, then how can you expect to be successful at it? If you were trying to drive somewhere you had never been before and never even heard of and you didn’t have a map or any directions, would you blame yourself for not knowing how to get there? Of course not.

The first thing to understand is that if you want to lose weight, then you must burn more calories than you take in. It’s simple math. But the big problem is most people underestimate the amount of calories they eat in a day… BY A LOT. The solution is writing down EVERYTHING you eat, even those little bites here and there. Those little bites add up fast. Just like those dollars here and there add up and drain your bank account over the course of a few months. The other problem is overestimating the amount of calories you burn. Even though people are different, the average person must burn about 500 calories a day to lose about one pound per week. This takes the average person 60 minutes of exercise a day! That’s why diet and proper nutrition is so important.

Exercise is vitally important for stress reduction and overall health, both mentally and physically. But if you think you are going to eat bad foods and make up for it by exercising, then chances are you are going to be horribly disappointed. But do not try to starve yourself. This will cause the body to go into “starvation mode” and slow down your metabolism. Try to eat within one hour of waking up in the morning and then eat small meals or snacks every 3 hours throughout the day. This will keep your blood glucose (sugar) level more steady and keep your metabolism moving. Also, make sure you get enough sleep. Research has shown that lack of sleep (under 6 hours) causes an increase in appetite. Lack of sleep also raises levels of cortisone, a stress hormone that causes weight gain.

Here is a tip that can have a HUGE impact on your waistline: Stop eating refined sugar! This includes things like sweetened yogurt, bottled juices, smoothies, and other foods commonly misconstrued as being healthy. If you are serious about losing weight and keeping it off, it is absolutely vital that you cut out as much refined sugar as possible, in all of its forms including barley malt syrup, brown rice syrup, high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), molasses, and even some forms of natural cane juice.

Homeless Kid Earns Spot At Harvard! Discover How A Homeless Child, Abandoned By Her Parents, Went From School Janitor To Harvard Student.

19 Mar

There were two YouTube videos that went viral not too long ago. Well… sort of…
One video got hundreds of thousands of views. Maybe even a million. The other only got about 12,000 views. The one that got so many more views was of a little kid, maybe 10 or 12 years old. The kid got an iPod for

Christmas. The kid went crazy, but not in a good way. He threw a complete tantrum because it was the wrong color. The other video was of a young woman named Dawn Loggins. Dawn was abandoned by her mother and father. They decided to take off one day to Tennessee and leave their teenage daughter in North Carolina. Most teenagers

would crumble, but not Dawn. Dawn is different. Dawn used it as motivation.
“I’m not mad at my parents. My mom and my step dad both think that they did what was best for me,” she says.

“I just realized that they have their own problems that they need to work through… They do love me; I know they love me. They just don’t show it in a way that most people would see as normal.”

Dawn got a part-time job as a janitor at her school and worked long, hard hours. She stayed at different friend’s homes and slept on couches and floors.

These couches and floors were better than the broken-down house she grew up in that no longer had running water. It is reported that Dawn often went weeks without taking a shower. She had to walk 20 minutes to a park to get water to cook with and flush the toilet. Teachers at school gave Dawn candles so she could do her homework at night.

In a typical day, she was up at 5:20 a.m. to get to school by 6:00 a.m. where she would work for 2 hours as a janitor at her high school. Then, she would go to her day of classes that includes AP (Advanced Placement) U.S. History, AP Calculus, and Honors English, along with her clubs and other activities. As soon as the school day was over, she worked as a janitor for a couple more hours. Then, she did her homework. It was not uncommon for her to be up until after 2:00 a.m..

Dawn ended up with a 3.9 GPA and scored 2,110 on the SAT. She applied to four schools in her state: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University, Davidson College, and Warren Wilson College. Then, she decided to reach for the stars. She sent in one last application to Harvard.

Dawn was accepted to the first four in-state schools she applied to, but heard nothing from Harvard for several months. Then, the letter from Harvard came. It was a small letter. A bad sign. A very bad sign. All her other acceptances came in a huge package with the acceptance material.

I guess Harvard likes to scare their incoming freshman because the letter congratulated Dawn for being accepted to the Harvard College Class of 2016, along with a full scholarship.

When interviewed on CNN, Dawn was asked, “What is your advice to other teens?”

She replied, “I have two pieces of advice to other students. The first one is – your situations don’t define you. You can take any classes you want and you can succeed. If you try hard, you can do anything. And I encourage people in poor situations to talk to someone at school… because the school system can help.”

She also advises other students to take advantage of all the opportunities they have.

Clearly, Dawn is correct. Situations do not define you. If Dawn can succeed, anyone can… Even if you got the wrong color iPod for Christmas.

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Did you know You Have Two Brains?

18 Mar

You have neurons in your brain, but did you know you also have neurons in your gut, including neurons that produce neurotransmitters like serotonin (also found in your brain) that can affect your mood? Your gut literally serves as your second brain, and even produces more serotonin than your brain does.

In other words, you have two nervous systems: the central nervous system (composed of your brain and spinal cord) and the enteric nervous system (the intrinsic nervous system of your gastrointestinal tract). Both are actually created out of the same type of embryonic tissue. During fetal development, one part turns into your central nervous system while the other develops into your enteric nervous system. To put this into more concrete terms, you’ve probably experienced the visceral sensation of butterflies in your stomach when you’re nervous, or had an upset stomach when you were very angry or stressed.

The flip side is also true, in that problems in your gut can directly impact your mental health, leading to issues like anxiety, depression, and perhaps even more serious neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism.

Research: Blind Mice See Again After Stem Cell Transplant.

18 Mar

You’ve probably heard of the three blind mice. Well, now the classic rhyme just changed: Three blind mice, three blind mice, NOW-THEY -CAN-SEE! At least, that seems to be the case…

According to research done at Oxford University and published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, blind mice can see again after researchers transplanted developing cells into their eyes and discovered the mice grew a new light-sensitive layer of the retina.

This may lead to a possible treatment to restore vision in retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration. It is most common for patients to lose vision when the outer retinal photoreceptor (light sensitive) layer is lost, and so it would be best to attempt to restore vision at this stage of the disease.

The study used mice that were blind from a total loss of retinal photoreceptor cells so they’d be as similar to humans with retinitis pigmentosa as possible.

According to Science Daily: “After two weeks, the researchers showed the cells transplanted into the eye had re-formed a full light-detecting layer on the retina and the mice could see. The cells used were mouse ‘precursor’ cells that are on an initial path towards developing into retinal cells.

“A pupil constriction test showed that, of the 12 mice that received the cell transplant, 10 showed improved pupil constriction in response to light. This shows that the retinas of the mice were sensing the light once more, and this was being transmitted down the optic nerve to the brain.”

There is a lot of work to be done, but this research gives a lot of promise for the future.

A Tasty Way To Lose Weight and Lower Your Risk Of Cardiovascular Disease, Diabetes, Hypertension, and High Cholesterol.

18 Mar

No matter who you are, this is great news…

New research shows a high-calorie breakfast not only helps weight loss, but it also might protect against diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular problems.

It is not just WHAT you eat but WHEN you eat it. The body follows a 24-hour cycle called the circadian rhythm, and this cycle has a big impact on your metabolism.

Accordingly, the time we eat will drastically affect how our bodies process food and if it is used for energy or stored as fat.

To determine the impact of meal timing on weight loss and health, researchers conducted a study in which 93 obese women were randomly assigned to one of two isocaloric groups. Each consumed a moderate-carbohydrate, moderate-fat diet totaling 1,400 calories daily for a period of 12 weeks. The first group consumed 700 calories at breakfast, 500 at lunch, and 200 at dinner. The second group ate a 200 calorie breakfast, 500 calorie lunch, and 700 calorie dinner. The 700 calorie breakfast and dinner included the same foods.

Results: Participants in the group that ate the biggest meal at breakfast had lost an average of 17.8 pounds each and three inches off their waistline, compared to a 7.3 pound and 1.4 inch loss for participants in the group that ate their big meal at the end of the day.

What’s more, the big breakfast group also showed a more significant decrease in insulin, glucose, and triglyceride levels than those in the big dinner group. The big breakfast group did not experience spikes in blood sugar levels.

The researchers also found that participants in the big dinner group increased their levels of bad triglycerides.

In other words, according to this study, eating the biggest meal for breakfast was superior to eating the biggest meal for dinner.

Researchers also mention that late night snacking appears to be more harmful than previously thought. So, it looks like eating a big breakfast, small dinner, and no late night snacking might be the way to go.

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