Scottish Shower

Well this one I fully admit I had real doubts about. Why on Earth would you want to take a cold shower??!! I mean you hear jokes about someone being so horny they need a cold shower,or every January we see people run into the icy winter waters for a few seconds and then race back to the shore. I watch them from my  living room with multi layered sweaters on.  What is the attraction?

Well I got suckered in by Ian Fleming who created James Bond, after Sean Connery rose to fame playing Bond Mr. Fleming would add touches here and there to make Bond Scottish. In one novel he said Bond would start his day with a “Scottish shower” sounds either racist or a sex act involving a Kilt and  an item to be named later. Turns out it a way of taking a shower to stimulate for the day,it involves starting with a hot shower and then going very cold and then back to warm and then finish off in icy cold North sea fashion.

Just a few things its supposed to do for you:

1. Improve circulation

2. Relieves depression

3.Increase metabolic rate

4. Keeps skin and hair healthy

5.Increase testosterone

6. Increase energy

7. burns fat

So if it works for 007 I figured what the hell, so I dove into my first Scottish shower!

I will spare you the details of my shower routine but the main result was WOW !!!!!, I’M WIDE THE FUCK AWAKE AND READY TO TAKE ON THE DAY!!! I mean I stepped out  of the shower ready to kick ass, my skin felt good and I just felt very much alive!

I’m a moody guy from time to time and I got to admit I came out feeling pretty good for the rest of the day.

Does it do all the things I listed? I don’t know about all of it, I do know it gave me energy and put me in a better mood which made me move better all day. So if this is some type of placebo , well then excellent it fooled me.

I’m adding this to my healthy life style changes, this falls under not a cure all for everything ,but a real step for me at least in the correct direction.

Give it try and let me know what you think.

Peace and Love all

Here’s todays basement gypsy song!

Don’t think twice, its alright

 

Sometimes we fuck up, I tend to more then most. I try and do my best with my food intake and my workouts but I still mange to make errors in my  judgment and sometimes I choose the wrong path because it turns out I am painfully human. The trick is to not beat yourself up and throw away all your past efforts.  My Friday and Saturday nights are my prime time to slip up. I’m not blaming my Scottish blood I just happen to like to have a drink or two. Now its 2am and some late night taco place is open , perfect lets eat until I’m sober.  I have done this once or thirty times but now I pay the piper the next day. If I did the crime then I will do the time and work it off and have a hard week ahead of me.

I don’t beat myself up, I except that I fucked up and get on with it.  Life is way too short to live with measuring each calorie and worrying about the scale etc… If you spend most of your days following the rules of good health it will start to become second nature to you and not drudgery. I still look up new foods to see the calorie intake but overall I have learned what’s a good portion for me.

This week it has rained most nights and we have had some places we had to be so we did not get in our regular bike ride or after dinner walk. So I new it was coming so I pushed myself to get in as much walking as I could during my work day. I stop and do some push ups on the back staircase whenever I go up or down them. I always park as far away from my building as I can. In short you do what you need to do, and what you can’t you make up later . Keep moving forward and don’t be so hard on yourself.

Do your best , don’t stress out and make the best choice you can every day.

Peace and Love all.

Todays basement gypsy song was easy to pick.

This is a long slow road

Lose 30lbs in a month!!! The way companies sell their diet pills and useless workout plans never fail to amaze me, and the desperate people who other wise very smart allow themselves to be tricked by this notion you can change your body by taking a pill .

I spoke with someone today about a crazy diet pill that has great results in weight loss. Typical  jacked up amphetamines that will make your heart explode. If your goal is health why would you want to harm yourself instead of feeling better?

This will take a long time to get yourself in shape, if your as bad off as I was it could easily be years. So what, take the right steps everyday and do not look back. Lets compare  people trying to lose weight  using diet pills to someone eating real food and working out.. I have by the way tried all sorts of pills I was as foolish as anyone else.

So the person who takes the pill will first feel a lot of energy, now this is very seductive because the same person before the pill was too lazy to move. The rush going through there system has them buzzing about and their mind is racing along with their stressed out heart. Most of these pills take away your appetite and suppress any hunger pangs. So you start lose weight, very quickly! Now the person gets on the scale and they see the numbers dropping off and even though its hard to sleep anymore they don’t seem to mind because they are just not tired. Now a few weeks go by and they are down 10-15 lbs only they feel odd, can’t put their finger on it they just don’t feel good. Oh well take some more pills. Now all this miracle weight loss is muscle loss and what is left is just fat. So after a month you just can not take it and you toss out the pills and go grab a pizza. So you binge for a few days the problem though is you have loss all that muscle and now that you have returned to your old habits you fill that muscle with fat. This is why people say diets don’t work and why you see overweight people getting heavier after diet.

My way now (after being the person I just described) is too set my goal of just being a better and wiser eater and more physical. I just don’t want anything in my system that does not help me. In the first week of eating good and starting a daily plan of walking you will feel better. Each month you see steady weight loss of about a pound a week. Your clothes will be the first thing you notice as they get looser, then you start to lose the fat in your face. In three months time you may be be even 20lbs down. In the next three months you will look to up your walks and go a little further, maybe start bike riding or join a gym. Each day you will feel better then the day before.

As of this writing today 5/13/14 I am with in 12lbs of my goal which I hope to reach this Summer. I will then start my next goal which I plan to reach by Fall. I’m already thinking about another touch winter coming so I need to have plans for that. This does not end this is long road I am walking but for me its worth it.

Make your plan, take your time. If you slip up,repeat start over and keep going.

 

Peace and love all

 

Diadem of Thought

We can all improve. Wherever you are in the world right now is because of your life time of thoughts. Some folks believe that luck rules the world, they are the haves and the have not's. Here is your lot in life and you have no  control over it. I admit to wasting a lot of my life just by being a dreamer and being lazy. I love to sit and read and watch TV and I spent a lot of my life just watching people and ignoring myself. It really got to the point when I would see a photo of myself I was surprised to see what I looked like. I just did not care about myself, I was far more interested in al these important figures in history or novels etc..

We all matter and we all  have something to offer the world. It starts with thought. How do you want your life to be and what do you need to do in order to achieve it. The meaning of life to me is to evolve into a better person and then share the knowledge for the next person and together we fulfill  the dreams that each of us harbor deep inside.

If you have the power to think of something to do, the rest is just a matter of doing it. There is endless power in a seed of thought. The giant Oaks lay asleep in an acorn, so it is with a thought until you apply action to it.

What risks are you willing to take in order to reach your dreams? When we see a fit person and and think well they are so luck to look like that, there is no luck there is great effort we ignore. I work with a lot of women in my office and I was speaking with one lady about her morning routine. She has all of her outfits chosen for the week on Sunday. She gets up very early so her hair and makeup are perfect. She fits in time to workout every day and takes care of the food she eats. She looks great and is very healthy and this is not luck. This is effort.

Luck is the dividend of sweat!

Study your shortcomings, do your homework and investigate the answers to you problems. If you want to change there is more information today then any other period in the history of man.

Make today the day of change and do not look back.

Love and Peace all.

I will walk 10,000 steps (just to be the man who walks…)

 

So my wife wanted a Fibit to track her sleep habits and calorie intake. I would paraphrase Malcolm X and say what ever it will take to get you on track. Fitbit and Jawbone and a host of other pedometer gadgets us the # 10,000 like it is a magical number. It’s not at all really, it turns out back in the early 1960’s in Japan they had a walking craze not unlike the jogging craze in the states during the 70’s. The pedometers they used went to 10,000 steps and the number stuck as a goal . The average person (read American here) walks about half of that in a day. The main point is to move more. Now the great thing with recording all these little bits of info is it does get into your head ,Hey I need to move more!

Here’s some numbers to chew on (no calories here):

3,500 calories equals about 1 pound of fat, so you need to burn 3,500 more than you take in to lose just 1 pound. So if you cut 500 calories from your diet every day (500 calories x 7 days = 3,500 calories) you would in theory lose 1 pound a week..and by the end of the year if you stuck to just this you could with very little effort lose 52lbs of fat….sorta.

Nothing is ever straight forward when it comes to weight loss, consider your water weight,the amount of muscle gain or loss. Lots going on there inside of our bodies,but the evidence seems to be overwhelming that the more we move the fitter we are.

Lets go with the 10,000 steps for now as a goal, grab one of these cool gadgets ( I was lucky and my friend gave me one Thank you Sunshine!) and start walking your normal day and at the end of the day how did you do? Did you get passed 10,000 steps or di you not pass 3,000? If you average 5,000 on a regular basis its not that hard to add on another 5,000. Every step counts through out the day, are goal is too reach at least 10,000.

Lots of little ways to get in a few hundred steps here and there; park at the far of the parking lot, take the stairs,at my office instead of instant message I walk to someone’s office. Get in a morning walk and an after dinner walk. It all adds up.

Now for my wife counting the calories in and the calories out was a real turning point for her and she is down over 15 pounds in a month or so just by being aware of food intake and moving. She says things now like I want to eat that but I am already over my limit and I don’t feel like walking anymore, or she has gone all day and forgot to eat ( never had that kind of memory problem myself) and is way under her intake for the day. The main point it removes endless eating and shines a light on how active you are.

I get a little obsessed over the scale which is not the best of plans but I don’t care its worth it for me cause I get such a charge when I drop another pound. Now I’m turning my obsession to getting in my 10,000 steps . Well got to go I have sat enough for now.

Peace and Love all

Here’s your basement gypsy song of the day, in honor of fight to be fit.

True North

“What’s it going to be then eh?” This is a much repeated quote in the novel  a Clockwork Orange. It has different meanings as the story unfolds and each time it is asked. Its something I ask myself not in the pick a fight way young Alex does in the book but in which direction are you heading.

Everything you are in your life is a direct result first of your thoughts, then your action or non action. A compass points to the North so we don’t get lost when we stumble off the familiar path. You start out with a plan and a dream now the thought is in place, follow up with the action. All to soon these muddy, weaker thoughts creep in and we give up. Keep your thoughts pure and avoid the energy vampires (see earlier posts, these guys are real!).

I don’t know or really care why anyone would want to put you off your dreams , but avoid these dregs at all costs.

So I ask you What’s it going be then eh??

Me, I’m  chasing all of my dreams the clock is ticking and this is not a dress rehearsal.

 

Peace and Love all!

!

I want a treat that I don’t have to feel bad about!

About two years ago I discovered that we owned a blender!! As always I had no idea what’s in our house. So I tried different things and came up with lots of nice tasting smoothies. This is my latest and I don’t have  any idea what it should be called but what it tastes like is fantastic!

I was reading my friends Facebook page and she posted a nice breakfast smoothie and I found out what I was missing in my smoothies!

 

 

This purple smoothie (good a name as any) is very simple to make and in one blender full was enough for two tall glasses.

Ingredients:  1 banana. some spinach leafs,frozen blueberries, coconut milk and almond butter.

I sliced up the banana and tossed it in the blender, added some frozen blueberries about a cup full or so(I’m a guy I do not measure food). Balled some fresh spinach leafs (again no idea how big a ball) tossed that in. Filled the blender about half way with the coconut milk (mine is vanilla flavored)and for good measure I added a spoonful of almond butter!

Zap until it all seems to be smooth and you now have a very nice drink packed with flavor and energy for you a summers day.

I did a little search on the calorie count for folks who count calories and a good guess would about 260 calories more or less.

I have no idea what is inside all the store bout juices and smoothies , I enjoy knowing what I am adding to my body.

If you have any questions or comments please drop me a line.

Peace and Love all!

Zucchini and onions

 

Hello all, my wife thought it might be a good idea to share some of my recipes, so I decided to share a brand new one to me and I would post about the steps and how it ended up. Baked Zucchini chips!

Well the problem is we had a late dinner and I had two glasses of wine and in short I will do all of that tomorrow. So here is a recipe I know very well and use a lot. This is my post dinner I need something to eat more then just a snack.

I take a small onion and dice it up, I then slice one zucchini or yellow squash into very thin slices. I add a little virgin oil to a frying pan and toss in the veggies, As everything starts to cook I add ground sea salt and pepper. I stir everything and the onions get a little blackened and I keep turning the slices of zucchini. This goes on for about 15 minutes and then at the last minute I sprinkle on some parmesan  cheese.

I pour all this on a plate and add some hot sauce! You can add whatever you like,if I have bell peppers I add some slices of them as well.

I end up with a very nice hot and spicy meal that is very low in calories but fills me up. This also works for me on nights when I have a lighter meal for dinner at 5 pm and now its 8:30 and I wish I would have had more. So altogether about 20 minutes of time to prep and cook and a filling snack that will not ruin your diet.

If you don’t like onions switch them out with bell peppers, I like to add as much color to my dishes and the flavor is great. So in short all you need is Virgin oil or coconut oil, Zucchini, one onion and a sharp knife. Add the spices you like.

Once you get into cooking healthy dishes you will never want to go back to fast food or crap out of a box.

As always drop me a note with any questions.

Peace and Love all!

Back to the woods

 

Going along with all this Primal way of living the thing I enjoy the most is perhaps the most primal of all.

Fire!

I love watching these shows on TV about survival , and the best thing Is always at night when everything is done and they build a camp fire.  It brings a lot to someone alone, so much comfort on many levels. wilderness a fire means ,comfort from the cold and pests, protection from larger attackers. A source to cook food, or to boil water etc..

What does a fire offer to the modern person safe in their steel and glass work place?  I think it stirs up something primal in us, something lost from our past. Just this week a friend called and said she wanted to stop by and catch up. She brought plants from her garden and wine and beer to share as well as a new dog in her life.

I built a fire in our fire pit on our back deck, it was a cool breezy night and there was plenty of light from the fire so we sat around drinking and catching up. I find I get transplanted every time I sit by fire. A thousand past memories stir up as I poke at the fire, camping trips, sledding in the park,ghost stories and romance.

How often have you seen a film and people set the mood by building a fire in the fireplace even if its in a penthouse in New York. The same deep mysterious images filter in. I  have read about it’s a good idea to go barefoot and walk on the grass and feel the Earth “move”. That might seem like hippie shit to you,but there is something very nice about the effect.

We are very busy in our air conditioned world, with heated car seats, mp3 players blasting in our ears, cell phones always in our hands..we loose touch. The nice thing nature is near by waiting, I live in the suburbs,but I’m lucky enough to live near a trail where railroad tracks use to be, this path follows an old creek and deer,wild turkeys  and sometimes a fox or two show up.  I see folks use the trail to workout ( I do as well) but they seem to ignore the beauty all around them.

If your feeling stressed out, I would offer a simple walk listen to the woods and then settle down for the night by a fire. Give your head a break from the constant noise of the modern world.

Peace and love all!