Today we will start taking a slightly different direction. To date my posts have been rather general. I will now attempt to become more specific and deliver more detailed information concerning the Ultimate Healthy Lifestyle.

What is the Ultimate Healthy Lifestyle? It is a lifestyle that covers all the bases in pursuit of the ideal life. A healthy lifestyle can only be concerned with one’s physical health. However this could ignore other areas of one’s life just as important.

While it is true that without physical health you would probably not be a very happy person. It is also true that you can be in perfect health physically and still not be happy.

Therefore the Ultimate Healthy Lifestyle seeks balance in all areas of life. Those areas are, physical, mental, emotional, financial, social and spiritual. One is not truly happy if any one of these areas are out of balance.

It is up to each of us to determine for ourselves exactly what that balance is in each area. It does not take the same things to make everyone happy. Everyone does not want to be a millionaire. It is not important to everyone that they have the perfect body.

You must determine what is important to you, no one can do that for you. This can be diffircult because of the constraints placed on us by society and by peer pressure.

We are all conditioned as we grow up. That conditioning is determined by things such as; our parents, the friends we grow up with, our church, school and our environment. We are also influenced by the laws of our community and government.

The society as a whole only cares about molding us into worthwhile citizens of our country. It cares very little about individuality. This is why we see so much coercion to get us to believe and act as others do.

What kind of world do you think it would be if everyone thought the same way and acted the same way? If everyone liked the same car and the same clothes? I don’t know about you but I would not like to live in such a world.

In order to live the Ultimate Healthy Lifestyle it is necessary that you tap into your individuality and often go against the grain. This can be hard, for sometimes this means going against family and friends. Sometimes it means being thought strange as you start your quest.

I was called ” that weird nice guy” by my peers as a young adult. I have been called a health nut and even just a nut. Being in a place where you are at peace with yourself and can mostly enjoy life makes it all worth it. I say mostly because the quest never ends. If you ever realize that perfect life then there is no reason for living any longer.

Stay tuned as we go deeper into what the Ultimate Healthy Lifestyle is and how we can live it.

TODAY’S TIP: Keep moving forward in your life. Strive to make each day better that the last one and you a better person today than you where yesterday.

Are you ready to start?

There is a saying that the grass is always greener on the other side. But, usually when we travel to the other side we find that nothing has changed. We also have the concept that we can do it tomorrow. We all know that tomorrow never comes.

One of the most important aspects of living the ultimate healthy lifestyle is living in the now. Now is the only moment we have and it is fleeting. As fast as you can think of the moment it is gone.

I bring your attention to this in the hope that you will contemplate what it means to live in the now. Contrary to popular belief, we are meant to be happy. Being happy is simply feeling good. Feeling good is a choice.

That choice begins when you appreciate what you have. Look at your life and you will see that no matter where you are or what problems you are facing, it could be worse. Be grateful that it is not worse. With that attitude you can begin to improve your life.

Cultivating an attitude of gratitude is cultivating a happy and healthy lifestyle. It is with our daily choices that we determine our future. Make choices that improve the quality of your life.

Remember, “If you do what you have always done, you will get what you always have gotten.” So look back and see what it is that you have been dissatisfied with and make the changes that will lead to correcting that situation.

Give thanks for what you have, where you are and who you are. Then decide what you want to have, where you want to be and who you want to be. Determine what you need to bring about those changes and make a plan to get what you need. Then set your intention to make it happen. All it takes is action. As Nike says, “Do it Now!”

The other part of the equation is sharing. Give freely of what you have to help others. Your efforts will be returned to you multiplied. However, do not look for the return to be as a direct response to your effort. It can come in any area of your life and at any time. Just believe and so it is.

We live life one day at a time. The measure of our progress is that today you are a better person than yesterday and tomorrow you will be better than today. It doesn’t matter if you take baby steps or giant steps, it only matters that at the end of the day you have taken more forward steps than back steps.

Life is for the living and to be truly alive you must live and enjoy a happy and healthy lifestyle..

Tip of the Day: When you first get up in the morning drink two large glasses of water before you eat or have your coffee or tea. This will help flush out what is left in your digestive track from the previous day and give you a good start on your daily allowance of water.

What do you want tomorrow to bring?

Everything changes, you cannot stop changes. You can however direct those changes so they lead you in a positive direction. You can choose to change in ways that enhance your life and bring you more joy.

Most people allow luck or chance to dictate the changes in their lives. That is why some people have more downs than ups. It is a choice.

How do you choose to direct the course of your life, to not allow “faith” to push and shove you wherever it will?  First, you must decide exactly what you want out of life and where you want to go. Then, you must set your intent on obtaining the desired results. You must strengthen your intent to the point you are willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish your desired results.

In an earlier post I mentioned discipline. To most people this is a dirty word. In reality discipline is a combination of desire and determination. With this combination one is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve a desired goal. This is how to win in the game of life.

The reason most people look at discipline as something to be avoided is because they see only the effort they would have to put forth. However discipline is something that one cannot avoid. We discipline ourselves to go to work each day and complete all the others habits and patterns we have established.

Discipline can be fun if it is practiced as a part the ultimate healthy lifestyle in the game of life. If we make a game of it and keep focused on the desired outcome, not the effort, it can be enjoyable as we see our desires becoming a part of our reality.

We have more control over our lives than any of us can imagine. We must believe that we are meant to be happy and enjoy our lives. It is possible!

TODAY’S TIP: Make a habit of taking time to do something nice for yourself each and everyday. Do something that you enjoy and makes you feel good.

Are you enjoying life? If not, why not? You are responsible for your life, so are you  making the best of it?

What does it take to make you happy? A new car, a bigger house or a pocket full of money will make some people happy, for a moment. Things do not bring lasting happiness. True and lasting happiness comes from within. It is an attitude. That attitude is a part of the ultimate healthy lifestyle.

I had my first realization of true happiness when I visited Trinidad in the West Indies. I was in the navy, a member of a patrol bomber flight crew, and we spend a week in Trinidad as one stop on what was termed a good will trip. I have never been one for sight seeing, but am very interested in the cultures and the people.

The plane crew and I were stating in a hotel near the airport. I became friends with a native cab driver and he would take me along with him when he had fares. He told his passengers that I was his cousin and he was training me to drive a cab. We continued our friendship after I returned to the US. I would send him Jazz music magazines and he would send me island music albums.

Well, while I was in Trinidad he invited me to visit with some of his friends. He took me out into the country. His friends were working as sugar cane cutters. There I was a city boy from the states in the middle of a sugar cane field surrounded Usseff E. Bobb Jr, that was his name, and his friends. They were drinking rum and I joined in. As we were laughing and joking it came to me. These were the happiest people I had every experienced. These people that didn’t have, as the saying goes, a pot to piss in, yet they really enjoyed life.

It was then that I realized that it didn’t take things to make you happy. The enjoyment of life is an attitude, an attitude that comes from a loving heart. You decide whether to be happy or sad. You make that choice each day and with each experience

Happiness is simply feeling good. It sure feels good to feel good.

TODAY’S TIP: Whenever you feel down repeat this phrase over and over: I feel good, I feel good, I feel good. As you repeat it put more and more feeling into it. You will find that you just have to feel good. It’s as if with each repetition your body feels lighter and lighter.

Is your heart a loving heart?

Do you practice the attitude of gratitude? A grateful heart is a happy heart. Incorporating Gratitude as a part of your Ultimate healthy lifestyle goes along way to being open enough to manifest your desires.

All religions speak of being grateful and giving thanks. The Koran says if you have a grateful heart I will give you more. You can always be grateful for what you have when you think about those less fortunate than you. Remember, no matter where you are in life there are always those with less.

Make sure you include genuine gratitude a part of your ultimate healthy lifestyle and the rewards are unlimited. When you wake up in the morning, be thankful. Even if you have nothing to look forward to that day, you woke up and you are still in the game.

Start a gratitude journal. Oprah Winfrey devoted two shows to gratitude. The first show she introduced the idea of a gratitude journal. Some time later she talked to people who had started a journal to find out how they did. All were happier and reported their lives had improved. Some reported changes in their lives that they considered miracles.

Each night just before you get ready for bed jot down ten things that you are grateful for that happened that day. It may be hard to do in the beginning but remember that they need not be major things. Things like the smile of a child, the friendliness of a co-worker or not having to wait in line for something where you sometimes do.

It has been said that small things mean a lot. This is certainly true when practicing gratitude as part of the ultimate healthy lifestyle. Start to practice gratitude and you also can experience miracles in your life.

TODAY’S TIP: Start a gratitude journal tonight. The rewards are unlimited.

Will you commit to three months to your gratitude journal?

 Yesterday I received an email with the following message, “life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here we might as well dance.” I thought that this is an excellent attitude to have for the ultimate healthy lifestyle. It is your choice and you can dance the dance of life or you can sulk in a corner as a wallflower.

you cannot escape the fact that life has it’s ups and downs. It is not the ups and downs that are important, it is the way you deal with them. Stress is the number one cause of illness today. Stress control must be a part of a healthy lifestyle. There are several things that can help in controlling stress and I will cover some of them in later posts.

You have probably heard the question asked, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Well we live in a world of balance and this is shown by the fact that it is also true that good things happen to bad people. It is all the experience of life. If those experiences make us better people then it is worth it. It’s only a temporary condition. Remember the saying “this too shall pass.”

Also remember that there is a common denominator in everything that happens in your life. That common denominator is YOU! Which means that nothing happens in your life without your permission. You give that permission either deliberately or by default. The choices you make each day determine your tomorrow. Learning to make better decisions would go a long way in improving your life.

Not taking life personal is another way to improve your circumstances. We have the tendency to think that we are unique in that we are the only ones to have certain experiences. Everything that happens to us has happened to countless others and will continue to happen to others. Only the expression is different.

In other words, you do create your reality. I encourage you to believe this and work towards cultivating more control over your life.

Today’s tip: There is a lot of controversy over how much water to drink each day. There is a way to calculate exactly how much you need. You should drink one ounce of water for every two pounds of body weight. So if you weight 150 pounds you should drink 75 ounces. If you do intense exercise, increase that amount.

Have you chosen to dance?

The most important aspect of a healthy lifestyle and even life itself is attitude. Your attitude is determined by your belief systems. If you want to change your attitude you must change your beliefs. You have the power of choice, to decide what your attitude will be and what you will believe.

Do you wake up in the morning looking forward to your day, or do you wake up dreading the coming hours? If you think about it you will probably see that the attitude you wake up with pretty much determines how your day goes. If you look forward to the day it will for the most part be a pleasant day. If, however, you dread your day it will not be pleasant. It is your choice.

If you do not wake up in the morning looking forward to your day, you might want to work on changing your attitude so that you do. Ask yourself why you dread your day? Are you unhappy about some segment of your life? If so, use the power of intent to bring about positive change to increase your enjoyment of life.

When you go to bed put forth the intent to have a good nights sleep and wake up refreshed by telling yourself that it will be so. When you awaken tell yourself you will enjoy your day and that all will go well. It may be difficult to do this in the beginning but as time passes you will see a change.

Life is a game and like any game, to become good at it you must practice. So begin to practice by directing your thoughts in a positive direction.

TODAY’S TIP: Decide today that you will work on feeling good about your life and adopt the attitude that will allow that to happen.

What will your tomorrow bring?

By the time an illness starts to show physical symptoms much time has passed. The physical symptoms are the result of possibly years of imbalance. All disease and illness begin in the mind. We are the creators of our reality and as such we create our illnesses.

Why would we do this? I think the main reason is that we do not believe ourselves worthy of being happy. From even before our birth we are conditioned in how we should live our lives. Our parents have ideas of  who they want us to be and project their ideas that were formed from their experiences.

After birth society begins conditioning us with one purpose, to make us worthwhile citizens of our society. They want us to fit in and are not concerned with our individuality. All our lives we run into people who want us to think and behave as they do.

This more often than not results in conflict within us. We struggle with what we want to do with our lives and what others tell us we should do. This conflict, if not resolved, creates all kind of problems for us.

Many in our society seek professional counseling and it sometimes seems that we have become a nation of victims. We play the blame game, blaming everything but ourselves for our problems. Psychiatry and psychology have made this acceptable and some spend most of their lives in treatment.

In order to be the creators we are we must maintain our balance and allow source energy to flow through us. The most important aspect of our lives is what we think. Our thoughts determine our lives. Our thoughts attract our reality.

In future posts we will discuss how we can structure our everyday lives to foster and promote the Ultimate Healthy Lifestyle. We will talk about wholeness and balance in all areas of life.

TODAY’S TIP: Take a look at the state of your health. Recognize that you have created it and you can create health instead.

Let me know if this something you are interested in?

We are living in some strange times. With all of our modern miracles in science and medicine we, as a society, are sicker now than in any time in mankind’s history. This is according to the US Health Department’s Center for Disease Control. How can this be? Something is really out of whack.

This blog continues to be committed to raising awareness of this problem and offering solutions so that you do not become one of those statistics. Heart problems, Diabetes, allergies, Asthma, Cancer and other diseases are at almost epidemic levels.

There are many combined reasons for this sad state of our health. Pollution in the air and water, Nutrients being leached out of our foods because of the way they are processed, and on a personal level, lack of attention to proper diets and exercise.

There are many reasons for our poor health but it all comes down to personal responsibility. We are our own guardians. If we give that power over to others, be they doctors, government or any one except ourselves, we do a great disservice to ourselves.

We lead busy lives and many of us don’t seem to have time for ourselves. Society teaches us to be unselfish, so many have a difficult time accepting from others. We are told it is better to give than to receive. It is better to give than to receive, but some of that giving should be to ourselves.

It is up to each one of us to do whatever is necessary to ensure that we live the best life we can. That best life means balance in all areas, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, financial and social.

We are all creators of our lives. Most people do not believe that because their lives are not what they want them to be. The problem is most of us are too afraid to take control of our lives and make them what we want them to be because it means going against the grain and sometime against our own families. I know that to be a fact because I had to do just that.

I want this to be your blog, I am only the facilitator. I hope you will take an active part by giving me feedback. Let me know what you would like to see covered. All areas of life are open to discussion. So please leave comments on my posts. We will explore the problem and discuss possible solutions.

Remember there are as many paths in life as there are people. You are unique and only you know what is best for you. Therefore take whatever I say with a grain of salt and if it is for you use it, if not, it may be good for someone else.

Find your truth. Create the life you dream of. Lets work together to find the way.

TODAY’S TIP: Remember that all things are possible, so do not limit yourself with limited thinking.

Are you ready to take the journey with me to a better you and a better me?

Many of us, if not the majority of us, never reach their true potential. There are many reasons for this. The greatest of those is fear. Fear controls much of our lives. The powers that be use fear to control the masses and have done so since the dawn of man.

In order to reach our full potential we must step outside our comfort zone and enter the twilight zone of the unknown. This takes much courage. Especially since we are a society that wallows in the negativity of life.

If you listen to the news you hear 90% or more negative things that are happening in our society. We hear about the murders and other crime. We hear about the bickering of our politicians and others. Seldom do we hear about our heroes and those who make a positive impact on our society.

When we come up with an idea that is our of the norm the people around us can give us a thousand reasons why it will not work. It is especially hard when it is our family and friends, those who we look to for support.

If we ignore the negative advice and decide to push on with our idea we risk the alienation of family and friends. Of course if we realize our dreams, those same people who told us it couldn’t be done are right there letting us know how much faith they had in us all the time. People have a very short memory.

This week I want to encourage each of us to take a look at our dreams and aspirations. Ask if we are worthy of them, then ask are they worthy of us. If the answer to both those questions is yes then set your intention to make them a reality and to work with all our might to overcome the fear and become who we truly are.

As Wilma says in our quote, there is greatness in each of us. We just have to get beyond the conditioning and negativity of our society. To move through the fear that grips each of us.

Find a reason that makes the effort and strife of accomplishment worth it. Look inside yourself. You will not find the reason outside you. You will not accomplish and enjoy doing it for another or because you think you should. You can do it if you make up your mind to.

TODAY’S TIP: Dare to dream big. As the saying goes; in your endeavors reach for the moon and remember, if you miss and fall among the stars you are still on high ground.

Have you reached you potential?