How to Sit Less at Work: 7 Tips!

Dear Davey,

I’m an engineer and it means that I spend 6 to 8 hours a day sitting at my desk. You mentioned that sitting has been linked to early death, even for people that exercise. Since I feel so chained to my desk, what are some tips for sitting less at work?

From,
Alex

Hey Alex,

It’s true. Researchers have found a link between sitting and early death – even in otherwise healthy folks who exercise regularly. Our bodies are clearly meant to move.

The good news is that there are a few simple changes that you can make to reduce your daily sit time.

Pace or walk while on the phone. Take calls on your cell phone or wireless headset. Use that time to pace the hallways of your work or even your office/cubicle. If you don’t have much room, simply stand and shift your weight from side to side. It’s better than sitting.
Stand at your computer. If you have a laptop, place it on top of a set of filing cabinets or on an elevated desk. If you’re really committed, you can even purchase a standing desk.
Take the long way. Whether it’s walking to the printer to trekking to the bathroom, take the scenic route. Maybe even opt for a bathroom on a different floor. Whenever you can, sneak in a few extra feet of walking time.
Replace chairs with exercise balls or other exercise equipment. Silly as it sounds, inflatable exercise balls make for great chair alternatives. You can even purchase a wheeled base for the exercise ball. Because exercise balls require balance, your muscles will fire constantly to help keep you stable. They’re also really fun to take bounce breaks on. Alternatively, I’ve seen people use other types of exercise equipment – even stationary bikes or treadmills – as chair alternatives.
Walk to lunch. Instead of eating at your desk, get off your butt and walk to a nearby park or cafeteria. Not only when you help keep your body moving, but the change of scenery can be refreshing and rejuvenating.
Walk more. Call and email less. Instead of communicating over the phone or electronically, opt for face time. Walk to your coworkers’ offices or cubicles if you have a question. While these 30 or 40 second walks may seem insignificant, they add up over time.
Take a five minute break and turn your chair into a workout station. Don’t believe me? Try my 5-minute chair workout.

I hope these tips help cut some of your sit time. And if you have any additional tips, please sure them in the comments below!

How to Sit Less at Work: 7 Tips!

Natural Cleanse for Health

Using the natural cleanse for health method to rid the body of dangerous bacteria and toxins is the ultimate weight loss plan that you can easily follow for the rest of your life. When you follow a natural cleansing program for your body, it restores the digestive tract, immune system and even your mind to the healthy state it should maintain for keeping weight off and living a healthy lifestyle.

Natural Cleanse for Health

So many maladies plague us as a result of how we live our lives today. Unwanted pounds and obesity are only two of the problems – others include sluggish dietary and immune systems that lead to health problems that could ruin our lives and the lives of those we care about. Most of these difficulties result from the way we live, but merely changing our habits won’t do the job. Periodically cleansing your body can prepare it for ultimate weight loss and ultimate health and isn’t that what we all wish for?

A true body cleanse isn’t merely taking a laxative to clean out your colon. Here are some steps you have to take if you want to thoroughly cleanse your body of toxins and achieve the ultimate weight loss and health potential

Here is how to do a Natural Cleanse for Health

Eat lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. They’re natural cleansers for the body — high in fiber and they contain no toxins that tend to contaminate the body.
Stay away from foods that contain artificial ingredients. These ingredients act as toxins to clog the body. Almost every non-natural food contains artificial elements, so stick to natural foods during your detoxification plan.
Drink plenty of water. Water will help to flush dangerous toxins from your system and revitalize the body in a way that nothing else can.
Eat low fat and low carbohydrate foods after the complete body cleanse. These types of foods will help your body to remain relatively free of toxins.

The natural cleanse for health program to lose weight will also benefit your body in ways other than ridding it of toxins.

Extra benefits include:

Lower high cholesterol and high blood pressure. Detoxification can help lower bad cholesterol and blood pressure, thus preventing future heart attacks or strokes.
Dry skin or acne will improve. If you suffer from chronic dry skin or acne, you’ll see definite improvements in these conditions when you detoxify your body using the natural cleanse program.
Aging. All of us want to age as slowly as we can. When you eradicate the toxins in your body, the natural aging process will slow down and your body will be rejuvenated.

A natural cleanse for health program is simple to follow and you’ll see and feel positive results immediately.

If you liked this post then these otehrs should be right up your alley as well:

Starting a detox cleanse
Eliminate Toxins With the Master Cleanse Diet
Four powerful acne cures

Natural Cleanse for Health

Test Post from Healthy eating, fitness and losing weight

Test Post from Healthy eating, fitness and losing weight http://healthyeatingfitness.net

How to Remain Optimistic in the Face of Adversity

There’s an old saying that goes, “the only two things certain in life are death and taxes.”  Well, I’d like to unofficially add another entry into that list: adversity.  After all, it’s everywhere.  Everybody has difficulties to overcome and problems to solve at one point or another in their life.

Even if you were to try extremely hard to avoid problems and make things simple, life has a way of thrusting adversity on you.  You never know when an unexpected event will happen.  And when those bad times occur, it can be hard to remain optimistic.

Understanding Adversity

When bad things happen, the temptation to turn pessimistic becomes hard to resist.  And pessimism can lead to other problems like negativity and defeatist thinking.

One thing that can help is to look at adversity itself.

We all have obstacles to face and problems to overcome.  Everyone wants to strive for a better life, but it’s often more difficult than we expect.  All of us have had bad things happen seemingly out of nowhere.

That’s the nature of adversity.  It’s an inevitable part of life that we must come to accept.  After all, it’s not just you – it happens to everyone.  Even those people who have had a lot of success have their bad days.

When you learn to accept adversity as a natural part of life, you begin to work better with it.  You begin to think of it as a process you have to go through.  You might even start to think of it as a minor nuisance – like taxes.

But sometimes life can really throw you a curve ball and give you something you never expected.  Maybe a natural disaster struck your city and your home was destroyed.  Or maybe you got some terrible medical news.

For those times, it can be hard to remain optimistic.

But here are four things I do when I need to refresh my optimistic outlook:

1.     Give Yourself time to cool off

A normal first reaction to bad news is to become angry.  I’ve been there before.  And it’s okay to express that anger.  It’s much better to do that then let it fester inside and come out in nastier, more destructive ways.

But eventually you have to get over the anger and let things go.  Whatever happened can’t be changed so you might as well learn to accept it.  If you can’t let yourself cool down, you’re only going to just bring yourself down.  And that can lead to resentment.

2.     Cheer Yourself Up

It’s important to do something fun to cheer yourself up and brighten your day.  Whatever it takes to make sure you don’t let yourself get taken over permanently by any negative emotions.

It can be something simple such as going to a funny movie or hanging out with friends.  Just make sure it is engaging enough to get your mind off what’s going on.

This doesn’t mean ignoring the problem and in the hope it will go away.  You should always work on your problems.  It’s more about cheering yourself up so pessimism doesn’t completely sink in.

3.     Focus on a brighter futureWhen you’re dealing with adversity, it can be easy to think it will never end.  When you look to the future, you might see nothing but bad times waiting for you.  That’s why it’s important to remind yourself of all the good things awaiting you.Focus on the good things you have to look forward to doing.  There is always something good you can think of for the future if you just look hard enough.  No future is all bad.

Be hopeful that good things will eventually start happening again.  Your optimism will help shine a light to a better future.  Without it, things will become much harder.

4.     Think of adversity as a cycle

One thing I’ve learned about adversity is that it is cyclical.  Things can be going great for you for a long time, but eventually a bad situation will happen.  New problems have a way of showing up unexpectedly.

On the bright side though is that good times are always just around the corner.  If everything is cyclical then those bad times you’re going through now will eventually be followed by good times. It’s just a matter of working your way through the adversity now in order to get to those good times later.

Remaining Optimistic

When adversity comes, it’s fine to feel bad for a while as long as you don’t lose your optimism.  But once you turn that corner and let pessimism take you down that road into negative thinking, you’ll find getting out of adversity much harder than it really should be.  Remain optimistic that things will be better and soon you will find that they will be.

How to Remain Optimistic in the Face of Adversity

Planning a Childbirth: Is There a Comfort Zone and Should You Get Out of It?

This post is written by contributing author Cory Trusty.

For most mothers childbirth is one of the most painful things they will ever experience. Staying relaxed and comfortable is sometimes the best hope for making the experience as quick and as tolerable as possible. Of course other factors come into play as well. Proper nourishment throughout pregnancy is essential.

Planning a Childbirth: Is There a Comfort Zone and Should You Get Out of It?

Listen to Your Heart

According to modern Western culture, February is the month of love. And although there are conflicting opinions about St. Valentine’s Day I love celebrating it because of its positive vibe. Love, acceptance, togetherness, hearts… Don’t you think that if you could listen to your heart a bit more often, you could turn your whole life into a big, fat and absolutely unforgettable Valentine’s Day?

So, this month we’ll talk about how to listen to your heart and how to follow it. Often, if you chose to actually hear your heart you will be forced to step out of your comfort zone and discover new lands of inspiration, which is even better.

While there isn’t a special secret thing you should do to learn to listen to your heart, there are a number of ways in which you can train yourself to notice its signs and follow them. It might feel strange at first but the more you converse with your heart, the more natural it will feel.

If you feel uncomfortable, scared and confused it means that you have stepped out of your comfort zone and are ready for exploration. The mere fact that you are reading this post means that you are ready for a change.

A life with your heart as the closest companion is certainly worth living. I officially invite you to a month full of stories, explorations and inspiration.
s!

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Listen to Your Heart

Healthy Super Bowl – Vegan Spinach Dip

Woo-hoo Friday is here. This week, and past month for that matter, flew by… how is it already February?!? Anyhow, we have lots of fun things planned this weekend so I’m excited it’s here. Tomorrow I’ll be going to my first wedding dress fitting (yay!) and then Sunday we’re attending a Super Bowl party.

I’m not a huge football fan, unless I’m winning in Fantasy Football, but I like parties and party food so I’m game for the Super Bowl. When brainstorming ideas of what snack to bring to the party, I remembered a spinach dip that was mentioned at a healthy food demo I attended with work last week.

So glad I did — I tweaked the original recipe a bit and the end result turned out great.

Not only is this dip healthy and tasty, it’s also gluten-free, soy free, vegan and raw! The base of the dip is made of soaked cashews, which gives it a creamy, almost cheesy texture and flavor. The jicama gives it a nice crunch and the spinach adds a lovely green color and lots of essential nutrients. Super food for the Super Bowl!!

Super Bowl parties aren’t known for healthy eats so I’m super excited to make and bring this spinach dip to the one we’re attending on Sunday. Hopefully our friends will like it as much as they liked the pea guacamole or beet hummus I made a few years ago.

Healthy Super Bowl Dip – Vegan Spinach Dip

Healthy Super Bowl – Vegan Spinach Dip