In life there are a few things we can control.

You can control how you move. You can control how you eat. You can control how you sleep. You can control how you breathe.

I’m sure you’re focused on controlling those first three elements with your exercise, rest and diet.

But are you focused on controlling your breath? I’m going to guess not.

Here’s an easy way to realign your breathing patterns to beat stress, and to train your diaphragm to work at its best capacity.

Weak, untrained feet lead to shin splints, hip pain and cranky knees.

If you're experiencing any of these problems they might be a symptom of your foot's inability to make proper contact with the ground.⁣ ⁣

We take our feet for granted.

Both in a metaphorical sense, we're never focused on where we are, and in a literal sense. We never focus on how our feet are striking the ground, or how they are feeling.⁣ ⁣

We cover our feet 95% of the day with shoes, socks, boots and high heels.⁣ ⁣ Your feet have nearly as many sensory inputs as your hands. They're supposed to be your anchor to the earth.⁣ ⁣

By covering them so often we lose a lot of that sensory input, and rob our foot of some basic functionality and strength.⁣ ⁣

If your foot isn't strong it won't be able to absorb the pressure of the ground properly, and it will distribute that force to an area that is not conditioned to absorb it.⁣ ⁣

Here are 2 simple strategies you can use to make your feet, and therefore your body feel better instantly.⁣

If you're anything like me you probably suck at taking care of yourself.

You probably prioritize your needs last.

Well guess what?

If you don't take care of yourself you can't take care of anyone else.

That's a rough truth for those of us whose role is provider, caregiver or coach.

Personally I suck at taking care of myself.

With a growing business and family I am blessed with a lot of responsibilities that I take seriously. I firmly believe that responsibility is what gives our life meaning, but we also need a healthy way to disconnect and cope with these growing responsibilities.

I think a lot of stress manage boils down to "The day is imposing itself on you" when in reality YOU should be imposing yourself on the day.

Here's a quick practice that I learned from Steve Krebs

It's a mental health "hack" that will allow you to impose your will and your desired way of being on the world and shift your mindset from victim to grateful.

Every morning get a piece of paper.

Write "Gratitude" then list 3 things you're grateful for.

Then write "Intentions" and write your 3 intentions for your state of being throughout the day.

You can't control the world, and the actions of those around you.

But you can control how you react to the world and those around you.

Starting your day outlining what is meaningful to you and how you want to be is a very easy, very efficient way to impose your will on the day.

Please just do it.

I was fortunate enough to be invited on to River City Live on January 2nd.

They’re an awesome group of people, super generous and very easy to talk to.

Since it’s barely 2020 a lot of people are making New Year’s Resolutions, and stressing themselves out about it. A lot of people have questions about how to create and hit their resolutions.

The answer always comes back to one thing: habits.

In this segment we discuss how people can trip themselves up when creating goals, how to turn a wish into a habit and how to find someone who can create a plan for you.

If you made a New Year’s resolution and are reading this blog I’m going to assume your resolution has something to do with changing your body.  You might want to add a little muscle, or lose a bunch of weight.  Both are worthy goals and both are achievable in a year.  There are some things you are going to need to keep in mind.

Sleep is important.  

It's 1/3 of your life.

It's when your body and mind recover.  

Lack of sleep will dramatically lower your testosterone level and cognitive function.

Nearly 50% of Americans are sleep deprived.  That makes us bad at driving and bad at thinking.  

Lack of sleep also causes us to overeat, and eat crappier foods.  Chronically undersleeping  causes us to gain weight and greatly increases our cravings for "junk food".  

We have evolved to sleep for about 8 hours a night.  If you sleep for 6 hours per night you are cutting off about 20% of your lifetime sleep.   That's a gigantic margin that can cause a lifetime of hormonal imbalance, cognitive decline and general idiocy.

Here are some ways you can get a better sleep. 

Sometimes life will punch you in the face.  All your plans and all your passion will go to shit.  In situations like that motivation will become worthless.  The only thing that will pull you through hard times is discipline.  Once developed discipline in unwavering.  It is like a tattoo.  Painful to instill, but permanent.  It might require some fine tuning every so often, but the base will never fade.

If you come to me and say “I need to lose inches” “I need to gain muscle”  “I need to lose weight” or “I need to tone up” there is one piece of advice I will give you.

You need to eat more protein.  

As a Personal Trainer I say this so frequently I'm thinking of getting it tattooed on my forehead.

Protein is necessary to build and maintain muscle.  This is of extra importance if you are aiming to lose weight, inches or reshape your body.

Adequate protein intake while eating a caloric deficit will expedite the fat loss process.

It comes down to behavior and NOT allowing yourself to develop a victim mindset. You need to take control of all your decisions if you want to control all your outcomes.

The outcome you want from this situation is to not get fat.

Therefore you need to take control of the alcohol you drink. You need to do it in a controlled environment where you say “Ok, I’m going to have 2 beers, then go home and have a regular meal and go to bed” OR you need to make peace with the fact that you are going to gain weight based on the decisions you make when you drink alcohol.

Therefore you need to make peace with the fact that drinking alcohol is more important than not getting fat for you. That’s harsh, but it’s the truth.

We live in a very soft time where everyone wants to avoid consequences, but when it comes to your body and health EVERY decision has a potential consequence. The faster you come to terms with that, the faster you can beat this plateau.

We have too much information at our fingertips, and it causes confusion. Studies routinely show that an overabundance of information does NOT make decisions easier to make.

An overabundance of information makes decisions significantly harder to make. If you listen to all this noise you will not be able to make a decision, you’ll be paralyzed and do nothing.

When it comes to nutrition you do not need to nail down every facet or perfect every nuance. There are a few very, very simple tips you can follow that help you create a diet for your goals while ensuring that you get enough nutrients.