Thursday, August 26, 2010

ah, the turtle ..thanks Tony

There's a reason the age-old story of the hare and the tortoise is still around. It's true. Hares may be quick off the starting block, but they usually crash and burn before reaching the finish line. Tortoises, on the other hand, pace themselves for the long haul and reach their goal.

The difference between them, however, is not speed. It's consistency. Consistency is probably the single most important factor to success in any endeavor. It's showing up for yourself time after time after time. Whether your goal is to lose weight, increase flexibility, improve strength, or learn to play the piano, showing up is half the battle, and it's the only way to get anywhere in the long run.
So focus on consistency first, and worry about ramping it up later—the momentum will build naturally. Before you know it, you'll be cruising along with ease and you'll sail right by that hare like he's standing still, which shouldn’t be too hard to do when he's passed out under a bush.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Yoga, Tony's tips

More Incentive to Stick with Yoga

Incentive
If there were a way to feel full of vim and vigor in your golden years, wouldn't you want to know about it? Now that I'm pushing 50, I'm writing about the golden years. More and more studies are saying . . . strike a pose.
That's right. Even if you've never tried yoga before, regularly practicing some simple yoga stretches and poses when you're older can give you back some of the energy and flexibility of your younger years. Here's a laundry list of all the other health benefits:
After 6 months of taking beginner yoga classes, men and women ages 65 to 85 reported:
  • Feeling more energized compared to how they felt before they started
  • Less pain overall in their day-to-day lives
  • Feeling more outgoing socially (Can you say hippocampus?)
  • Having better balance
  • Greater flexibility in their trunk and limbs
Not only that, yoga may also be good for your heart. A study was conducted on a group of people with heart disease who adopted a "yoga lifestyle," a holistic approach to health, including eating right, getting those zzzz's, and maintaining a generally positive attitude. Heart disease lesions diminished in almost half of the people who had signs of the disease at the beginning of the study.
Ommmm . . .