Hard exercise is tiring and sometimes we feel we can’t take away from our other responsibilities.  Time is another excuse we often create for not  getting fit.                        

Time and energy are both requirements of being fit.  To create time and energy we have to eat healthy and eliminate some other activities.  We waste hours everyday looking at emails, texting,  watching TV, and so on. With 24 hours in a day, there is time to create space for activities that in the long run will give us more time–on earth.

Create more energy by drinking more water and eating less sugar.  Eat clean protein. Have at least one or two salads a day with maybe tuna or chicken added. The lighter food, more protein, and added hydration will decrease the energy used for digestion and add to the energy we have for mental tasks.

Exercise requires mental energy because it requires enthusiasm.  The more mentally active we feel the more likely we are to see exercise as an avenue to temper our high energy and to mellow it.  Mellow high energy is the precursor for creativity.

Exercise balances and supports the alpha and beta waves of our brain which foster creativity and logic/calculating.  If we are to be high performance individuals we need peak mental energy. Exercise eliminates inflammation which erodes physical capabilities and replaces inflammation with high energy cytokenes that rebuild burned muscle cells and energize the body.

So the way out of laziness is to oxidize and energize all our systems with a good aerobic stimulus.  Don’t watch TV, run around the block.

Visit my new   Google + pages and get into the happiness habit.

**

Create  Health Fitness and Happiness in your life with a few Life Management sessions

Do you need a Speaker to talk to your group about health fitness and happiness? Happiness can be built on behaviors that don’t cost money and don’t take extra time.

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Today when using my Internet Explorer browser, a Google message popped up from the tool bar asking if they could follow all my searches.

It didn’t have a close option and I couldn’t proceed to use the browser or even close it.

I promptly shut down my computer and when it restarted I went to the control panel and in “add or remove programs,” I eliminated the Google Toolbar from Internet Explorer.

How did they get the control to take over my browser and activities?

Email

mail to:markap12@gmail.com

I do research everyday to find material that stimulates my thinking in areas I present to you. I cover a pretty wide swath from economics to self improvement. I often read two books a day.

My approaches to self improvement are looking for peak performance and peak happiness. Yesterday I read two books that approach peak performance and they had very different perspectives.

One of the books had a more profound affect on me because it covered a topic that is outside and yet very inside what I discuss. “The Gifts of Imperfection” by Brene Brown, Ph.D. was a surprise.  Brene’s specialty and doctorate are about shame. This is a term I have never heard and so I think it is pretty original with her.

She mentioned half way through the book that she is an alcoholic 15 years sober and it made me connect with her struggles and personality.

I feel I have a pretty idyllic life under my circumstances. The real estate industry collapsed on me and left me without a real skill that could be applied in the rapidly escalating unemployment paradigm.

Luckily I have earned enough money in my life that I could tap into some early Social Security benefits and get an income I could live on. After developing a brand new field for myself in Search Engine Optimization, I started improving web sites for online businesses.

It was a lot of work and I decided that if I lived frugally I could do what I really wanted and not have to generate more income. So I have moved to the beach and have really enjoyed how I spend my personal time. I write, exercise, surf, research, eat healthy, and spend a lot of time next to the ocean.

I never thought about the areas in which I might have shame. I never expected when I was young and buying Ferraris,  that I might be depending on Social Security for my income when I was older. I live in a great spot above the beach in a very cozy little apartment, but I have to explain how little it is to others. I don’t have or need a car because I don’t have a job and my community is totally self contained. Twice a month I hop on a bus to visit Wal-Mart and I travel on the train two blocks from my residence to visit other cities.

As a senior, I can ride the bus for $.75 and go anywhere in San Diego. The car I had was costing over $500 a month with loan, insurance, license, and maintenance. I have downsized into a very self sustaining life style that allows me to do what I really enjoy.

Yet on the other hand, I would feel very uncomfortable laying it all out for a stranger because it doesn’t match the “rich” life I used to live. The fact is, the previous happiness was based on acquisitions and spending. Now I am engaged in self fulfillment and exploration of who I am.

Brene makes a point that authenticity and being real is more important to happiness than pretending. She defines Authenticity as “the daily practice of letting go who we are supposed to be and embracing who we are”.

The heart of compassion is accepting who we are and then accepting others. We should not look up in envy or down in condescension at others because we are all very connected. As long as we live who we are and without comparison, we can feel very fulfilled.

Numbing is a word that we may not think about, but live everyday. To escape all the frustration and pain of every day existence, people tend to gift themselves compensation in various forms. It might be alcohol, drugs, shopping, gambling, sex, food, TV, and even anger.

As an alcoholic Brene used to say she drank to “take the edge off’. This is a term that alcoholics would not give much credence, but it expresses something we all do. We feel the adrenaline build up or the anxiety, or worry or frustration and we need to take the edge off.

I take very pro active steps to keep the edge off. I believe in healthy eating and fitness to feel the best I can. I don’t do it as an ideal, I practice it daily as a religion. I believe in lots of rest in between periods of intense effort or concentration. This keeps me working at my peak and prevents boredom from burn out in any one session.

I believe in recreation and relaxation to feel stimulated and refreshed. By the end of the day I rarely need to take as much edge off and each week I feel little need to blow out to compensate for the built up tension.

Accepting who we are, accepting how we live, accepting what we want out of life, and pro actively pursuing our passions can create a more purposeful life. We may have to face down the demons and put counter demon pro activity into play.

Letting the shame out is letting a light into the darkness. The more shame we live with, the more edge we might have to take off.

Do You Want to Share?

**

Read  “The Gifts of Imperfection” by Brene Brown Ph.D.

Her other book

I Thought it Was Just Me (but it isn’t). Telling the Truth about Perfection, Inadequacy, and Power. By Brene Brown Ph.D.

She has an amazing website at http://www.ordinarycourage.com/

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Will we take to the streets? Most likely.

The first problem is that our government is not run by those who elect it.

Politicians are caught between a rock and a hard place because business runs government and the people elect it. Politicians have a difficult time staying in office and also doing the bidding by those pulling the strings.

It seems business controls the legislation, the regulations, the jurisprudence, and the policies.

The fact that the people defeated the tobacco industry was almost an unnatural event.

The financial industry deregulated the regulators in the 90’s. The health care bill seems to serve the pharmaceutical industry as much as the populace. A few large entities control the food we eat and give the high social and environmental costs back to the public domain.

We get led in the direction we too easily follow.

Food, Inc, a movie about the food industry available on Netflix.com is a great start on how fast food created a factory oriented food industry to supply the demand. When McDonalds becomes the largest customer for meat and potatoes, they have a lot of control.

When 30% of our land is used for growing corn and that crop is subsidized by the government (taxpayers) it puts into motion an uncontrollable force. The fact that according to Food, Inc one out of three people born after 2000 will have diabetes is a social cost and result of that force.

When health care hijacks the national debate and budget instead of health creation, it demonstrates the forces at work are controlling the focus of the debate and the government is curing the wrong problems.

When 1% of the people are rich and business is flush with capital while people lose their homes, can’t find jobs, can’t afford medical care, and have lost their retirement savings, the system looks stacked.

It says that even as voters we have lost sight of reasonable, responsible objectives.

We took money that was too easy. We eat cheap thinking that there are no long term costs to be paid. We demand services to our communities or we won’t keep our politicians in office.

To be independent and free, people need to be independent and self reliant. We need to take care of our own health. We need to produce and spend according to our incomes. We need to demand parity, accountability, and transparency in legislation, regulations, taxes, jurisprudence costs, and policies.

We need to finance elections and eliminate lobbyists.

We are headed by a government that has printed too much money in order to remain in power and given too much power to those who have money.

The inequities are too large and the solutions not sufficient.  We have to be responsible and demand responsibility. Other wise we also, in frustration, will head to the streets. We will get shot by rubber bullets we paid for.

**

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They might also be called demonstrations or peaceful demonstrations.

Government is very inefficient if you are not rich. The rich hire lobbyists who can effectively affect or gut legislation. The legislative process starts out by the initiation of good bills that soon get gutted and compromised by special interests.

Democracy is one of the most inefficient business organizations ever created. Can you imagine running a business by allowing each department to send a voting paid representative to a Monday morning meeting where the company’s strategy was going to be created?

Democracies and dictatorships are finding everything comes to a boil when constituents are frustrated that their right to vote or not vote is not creating parity.

Big business has the time to anticipate future legislation or regulations to get their ducks (lobbyists) in order to make the appropriate campaign contributions.

When the economy run by special interests has created mass suffering, people don’t have the luxury of lobbyists, lawyers, or legislative influence to make things right. As soon as food prices start to escalate or governments need to cut back to stay afloat, the desperate masses don’t have time for legislation.

There is a demonstration in Madison, Wisconsin over a proposed 7% cut back on healthcare and pension payments by the Governor Scott Jackson. Legislators whose homes were targeted had to leave town

“Kim Hoffman, a middle school music teacher, said she and her husband, also a teacher, would lose $1,200 a month under the plan — too deep a cut to manage.” NYTimes

“Few Americans have heard of Mr. Sharp. But for decades, his practical writings on nonviolent revolution — most notably “From Dictatorship to Democracy,” a 93-page guide to toppling autocrats, available for download in 24 languages — have inspired dissidents around the world, including in Burma, Bosnia, Estonia and Zimbabwe, and now Tunisia and Egypt.”  NYTimes

The Muslim Brotherhood published his book on their site. He gives the key points on bringing down dictatorships through peaceful revolution. He credited Egyptian demonstrators on their lack of fear. “When demonstrators are not afraid of the dictators, the dictators are in trouble,” he says.

The movie “Network” had the memorable line, “I’m fed up and I’m not going to take it anymore.”  People are unhappy in developed countries that their government didn’t protect them against their own profligate spending. It is pretty clear that since the 90’s the banking system has been corrupting the regulatory system.

Now the institutions who have felt secure behind the legal system are facing new threats. The frustrated masses are short cutting all legal avenues and taking their views to the streets. This process is a pretty good short cut on elections as well.

**

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Globally, fitness has different standards of success.

I have two tests for a balanced food and fitness program:

• Immunity
• Vitality

I haven’t been sick for ten years. I have the energy to complete my daily goals.

Developing and developed countries lack food energy and fitness.

Half the world suffers from the need for more food energy. The other half suffers from a variation of the same need. In the former case, there is not enough food or variety. In the latter case there is too much food of a useless variety.

In impoverished countries, women have to, farm, gather fuel for fires, cook, and take care of the children. Under nourishment means they don’t have sufficient energy to complete their tasks and suffer from sickness and disease.

In developed countries, people have productivity goals and generally have daily schedules to be fulfilled. Anxiety and over whelm create the need to eat on the run and then eat for comfort. People do not live on natural foods; they live on man made foods. Their brains think they are starving and urge them to eat more. The results are under nourishment, obesity, sickness, and disease.

An over weight body is then exercise challenged. It takes an extraordinary amount of exercise to reduce pounds and an over weight person cannot achieve that end.

Studies of the most vital civilizations show that people who live the longest disease free eat healthy foods, labor hard, live to be over 100 and are having sex in their 80’s.

Living in balance for most people would mean they had the energy to attack their goals. It is clear coffee, sugar, and cigarettes are the foundations of many an energy program. Energy is produced from eating high vibration foods and not consuming sludge.

Energy is produced by creating enough exercise to support metabolism, oxygenation, and brain waves. Laboring all day is one way to get enough exercise, but most need to fit in a half hour to hour a day with more design.

I surf an hour to two hours a day. My first defense is a high protein recovery drink. Secondly, I need enough natural carbohydrates like fruit and vegetables. Thirdly, I need some protein which I get through beans and chicken and my protein drink. Fourthly, I need healthy fat which I get from olive oil and avocados. I get my grains from oat meal and brown rice. I get fiber from the fruit and vegetables. I avoid a lot of sugar, fried foods, red meat, unhealthy fats, and too much flour.

Eating the right foods creates lean automatically without exercise. Adding exercise creates energy, self esteem, mind control, and immunity. For those who have a choice, why would you not optimize for peak performance?

**

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Each day I write in my calendar book the weather, the height of the local waves and my experience surfing that day. I also note if I ran my stairs first as warm up. This allows me to view my progress and envision what I want to be able to write on the next entry.

Since I want to increase my fitness and my surfing capability, daily entries allow me to get a perspective of where I think I am and where I want to be. It is like being a third party observer.

Then, each week I write a report on my website writing activities to my friend Jim Greenwood and save my reports in a continuing file on my hard drive. They are segments that allow me to see if I am conscious of any progress or changes. They are also stepping stones to somewhere as opposed to unconsciously engaging in the process.

Jim has always said that writing is a good process to see what is on your mind and taking small steps is the way to progress. Tossly.com.

The writings sort of clear my head; they journal my progress. They create a fresh start until the next entry. In the mornings, I create by writing posts for my websites. Then I create my surfing experience by visualizing what I want to accomplish or practice.

The writings would immediately expose if I was in a flat spot with no aspirations. They tell me how I feel about what I am doing. They bring out the most noteworthy or exciting part of my experiences and progress. On bad days, I get in touch with my frustrations and that gives me a point for rebound and improvement.

I keep thinking I will look back some day and enjoy my progress or just get in touch with what I was experiencing at a particular time. Maybe my future grandchildren will read the process of how their grandfather became a famous surfer.

It keeps me accountable for my time and thoughts. If you are a regular reader of my posts you will recall I even reported to you on my January’s progress. That gives me a fresh slate to create new plateaus for February anticipating that I will report back to you.

I now become accountable to you for learning more than I knew in January.

The value was also brought home to me in reading Alan Fines book “You Already Know How to Be Great”. When working with clients in sports and especially business, he gets them to reveal and accept ownership of their own talents, aspirations, and then future plans.

One tennis student couldn’t get the ball on the appropriate side of the court and in bounds. Alan could have told him what to do. It’s what he was getting paid to do.

But Allan has learned that the students already had heard enough coaching on the proper things to do. I remember when I was learning how to ski, an expert friend of mine told me at least 20 things to think about on edging, balance, and turning. When you are descending a hill you are only thinking about crashing and don’t have time to run down the check list.

Alan has learned to get inside the students head to see if there is a schism between what they are being told and what they are thinking. He asked this one student what he was thinking as he saw the ball coming toward him. By getting the students mind off the lessons and concentrating on one specific item, like looking for the seams, it freed the students mind to let his body react normally.

I learned in skiing that instead of concentrating on getting all 20 tips into one run, I would work on one tip at a time. There is a neuroplasticity to the brain where one message given repeatedly can create new growth and recognition.

Getting too many messages at once creates over load. Don’t we experience that in our daily lives? We are thinking of 20 things at a time and not concentrating on one item. Even when we are working on one item we still have 20 items playing music in the background.

If we were concentrating on one item only, chances are we would fall into “flow” and thoroughly enjoy the experience. In fact, “flow”  is like runner’s high and can become addictive. It is where we concentrate on one activity and eliminate all distractions. If we can engage without distractions, it creates true happiness.

Constantly freezing our thoughts about something we like in writing allows us to more consciously engage in a process of remembering them and focusing on them. Each time we list our current status, it allows us to then think of what we would like to see in our next status report.

Allan has found that the more specific his clients/students can get about what they are seeing in their experience, the more likely they are to see the next step.

We learn to think about what we think. We can be observers as to what is going on in our mind.

Whole brain thinking engages the left brain to write out specifics about a problem or goal. Then when we give it a rest or suspend the left brain thinking to engage in other activities, the right brain starts to cogitate on solutions or alternatives. The left brain can then come back to evaluate the best alternatives. Revelations, epiphanies, and ahas come from right brain thinking while we are engaged in monotonous exercise activities like running, gardening, showering, or sleeping.

Writing down what you do and enjoy gives you more focus than you would imagine. It helps you decide what is important about the activity. Ever have something exciting happen to you and you want to call someone and tell them about it.

I look for the opportunities to create memorable experiences. I am visualizing where I would enjoy being next. I don’t like goal setting but I enjoy visualizing the next happy plateau.

**

Read  “You Already Know How to Be Great” by Alan Fine

Read  “Whole Brain Thinking” by  Jacelyn Wonder

See Tossly.com “the power of small steps”

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Resistance and gravity seem to be natural laws in spirituality, business, and life.

Making things more aerodynamic is a technology present in commerce and sports.

“Over coming” and “trying harder” are two phrases we hear often in our motivation to succeed.

When things don’t go as planned, resistance is winning. We have all experienced times when everything works as planned and get frustrated when our efforts seem to have no results or even worse, negative results.

I have faced many obstacles in my years and learned three lessons. First, I exert my best efforts and talents to achieve an objective. If find that I cannot reach that objective, then I create a new strategy.

Secondly, the objective is usually part of a larger goal. If my goal is to make $100,000 this year, for example, it is part of a larger goal of taking care of my family, creating savings, collecting a deposit for a purchase of a house, or creating financial independence.

So if I don’t make the $100,000, then I have to reach my goals with a different strategy.

Thirdly, don’t ever quit. I listened to a great discussion with Donald Trump and students at a university with him on stage and them firing him questions for an hour. When asked at the end, what is one thing he would tell everyone, he said “Don’t ever quit.”

We often hit flat spots where we start to question the value, the likelihood, the feasibility of continuing our efforts. It is important to understand the relevance of our near term objective to how we want to live. Is this particular endeavor something we want to do for the rest of our lives or does it express who we are?

I have realized in my latest avocation at the end of my real estate days, that writing is one of three of four things that I want in my life. Therefore, I write every day. My style and the ease of it have morphed over time, but I never get tired of it.

I have realized that since I moved to the beach fitness and especially surfing are two things I wanted in my life. Surfing can be frustrating and it is easier to learn when you are 15 years old, but nonetheless, I want it in my life. Therefore I surf every day.

Two things happen when you commit to an activity or objective and practice every day. You become used to the activity and develop some reasonable competence. It gets to the point that you don’t have to concentrate on the mechanics. You just do it.

As you engage in a distraction free environment you experience the activity and everything else in the world seems to be a noise that is far away. Soon you are fully engrossed and time loses meaning. You are not worried about judgment and you are not doing it for a material reward. You are just doing it because you enjoy what is happening.

This is flow or being in the zone. Your brain is producing endorphins and dopamine and these are the chemicals associated with happiness. Selig Martin, a known psychologist, says happiness is a process.

So if you are frustrated with your progress you have to ask yourself whether the activity really has meaning for you. Are you engaged because there is a motivation such as a pay check or are you engaging because you are inspired?

It is difficult to pursue something that is not you. It is difficult to get into flow in an activity that does not have meaning for you. Since flow is where the happiness is, you need to consider the value of your endeavor.

If the objective is not you, then you should consider it a short term objective and transition to something that allows you to express who you are.

**

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What is it about puppies that make us feel everything is good in life?

To begin with, it’s a set up. We purposely pursue feelings that we know we enjoy.

Puppies take us to an emotional joy where love is unconditional

How often do we have the excuse to talk like we do when we are oogling someone’s cute new dog?

I saw a 3 month old boxer the other day that I think I would have taken in a heartbeat. I have always wanted a boxer and this epitomized the feelings.

We love the innocence. What is happier and friendlier than a puppy? They love you unconditionally. Tell me, how many people love you unconditionally? Even your kids have big conditions. Your mate has big conditions. Dogs don’t and especially puppies.

You realize they just ache to picked up and held and they want to lick your face. Even my best lines never got that immediate of a reaction.

We are immediately connected to Mother Nature. Only life can deliver something this precious.

When you grab their little chins and they jump on you like their long lost cousin, your whole face breaks into a great smile.

You tell yourself you want the puppy right now. How many things requiring so much care would make you commit that fast? I spend a lot more time than that in the store  committing to the coffee I want to buy.

It’s an immediate connection to the best that is in you and you know it.

If you could feel that several times a day, you would be a better person; we all would.

How many things take you to that place in yourself that fast?

If we felt that way about each other, we would all be happier.

If nations could be bonded like that we could work out our conflicts and trade so much easier.

The world needs more puppies.

As I have cut out TV and football, I find I have more time to myself.  I do run into times in the evening when I would normally turn on a football game and let it take over my mind.                         

Now I happily wonder what I should do with my time. Saturday and Sunday I spent more time outdoors and actually started planning some train trips around San Diego.

In the evenings, I find I have turned to my old friend music and have discovered SongArea.com where there is hardly anything in the last 50 years they have not digitally re mastered and made better than new.

I even listened to Phantom and Les Misrables each of which I have seen several times.

But I also wandered into the favorites I used to sing in my youth.

Then I listened to the Neil Diamond songs I used to dance my oldest daughter to sleep with when she was a baby. Now she’s 24 and living in London where I can’t see her often. I actually cried when I heard my favorite with Barbara Streisand and Neil Diamond singing “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers Anymore.”  I think I had happy and sad memories crashing together.

She’s the middle one in the picture. The same happens to her where there is the happiness of remembering and the sad of so much passing under the bridge.

I also took my daughter and her sister through a divorce which led to lots of heartbreaking times and feelings of separation and abandonment.

I feel very happy these days because I have gone through so much and I feel I can finally get my personal perks and self expression time. But what do I hide that I haven’t given myself room to contemplate because I can get passionate about the football and other TV pablum?

Maybe now I am on the road to finding out. Should we actually seek out the bad or sad memories?  I think not. But should we hide from anything that might be lurking beneath our eloquent busy ness that may seek to keep all those feelings suppressed?

I am continuing my journey to find out more about me by taking more off my plate and letting more new stuff in. My brain has never forgotten a single moment of my life.  By having no fear about what will come up and even giving it the opportunity maybe I can keep scraping down to the visceral where I have no fear of who I am and what I think.

Dealing with my demons and dark places will certainly bring light to my soul even if I have to go through some teary and regretful thoughts. I think it is worth it.

Try taking some things off your plate and opening up to what comes in.