Category: Insights

General Diet Advice for Success in the New Year

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I’ve been saying for a long time, that with too much sugar; the body will begin to burn sugar instead of fat. And that even if, your body is burning fat instead of sugars/excessive carbs; you definitely want the good/HDL fats over the bad/LDL fats that are harder for the body to deal with.

I’ve read a few articles that talk about getting the body to burn fat instead of sugar by modifying workouts and diets. Though nothing is quite as effective as simply avoiding processed sugars and excessive carbs in the first place. Though how in the world today do we actually do that? Of course simple is not always easy.

There’s an article, that I cant find to reference though will include later if or when I find it, from a Navy SEAL trainer who said the key to having the mental/emotional and physical edge over sugar, our diet and our lives; is realizing and coming to grips with the fact that eating sugary/bad food is literally built in to American and now many global cultures. And that we, need to choose on our terms when, not if, we indulge; and to truly enjoy the occasions when we do – so our bodies/minds release positive endorphins instead of stress hormones when we remember the last occasion of indulgence and the thoughts of our future encounters; during the times we’re restricting sugar/bad things from our diet and really working hard to achieve our goals and dreams.

“Simply” understanding this alone should give you enough of an edge to persevere to achieving your goals. Though just in case you’d like a, No BS Approach to Effective Fat Loss, with cool calorie, protein, carb and fat calculators – here you go!

All the best in achieving your goals, and I hope you’re having the happiest start to the new year!

Daniel Dunn, LMT
Owner & Bodyworker
Body Zen Massage & Health Sciences
813-863-4895
TheBodyZen.com


Happy New Year!!!

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I’ve been posting few ‘blog posts because I only want the best information I can put here without creating so many posts that no one can read them all. So here are two more that are definitely worthy of adding because of how important the information is to keeping commitments and actually being able to reach the goals you set.

I found this video so inspiring I want to share it with you here. Many of us have heard a lot of this information or similar information before. Though the life stories Mr. Schwarzenegger shares with us and the way he means what he says, gives enormous encouragement and motivation to everyone making the necessary sacrifices working hard to earn success and victories. Here’s the video!

And if you really feel ambitious, here’s a $100k body transformation challenge from bodybuilding.com! Register before January 27th!

happy new year from Body Zen massage tampa

Women’s Self Defense Course – Introduction Lecture Parts 1 & 2

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I will be teaching a womens self defense course in the near future, though before the course is officially being taught – I want you to have this fundamental overview so that you have the important knowledge that can save your life or anothers if necessary, and, so you have the fundamental concepts needed to learn the physical techniques most effectively.

This is a very quick overview of the basic fundamentals. Yes, even 30 minutes of lecture is fast for covering what you need to know to stay safe and alive when you need to protect yourself. And in the near future I’ll be making another video with some movement exercises that will tie the lecture material together in application.

Like I say in the video, being comfortable with this knowledge is imperative to being able to use the movements efficiently. So I recommend getting very familiar with these concepts so everything else you learn will be effective when you need it.  Thanks for watching and of course please let me know any questions or comments!

Repatterning Exercises – Feet, Legs & Hips

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These are two of the most commonly needed repatterning exercises that I recommend, because so many of us have lower body imbalances that affect the whole body. These are relatively simple and effective when done correctly, and like just mentioned; can benefit the entire body by gently focusing on the lower half.

What is neuromuscular repatterning and how do these work? When we learn how to perform any motor function, like crawling, walking, running, carrying things, and so on; our nerves form pathways and connections to muscles, to increase our ability and skill to perform these functions. And from injuries, improper form and or function, lack of or excessive motions, and so on; our neuromuscular function can be debilitated, imbalanced or excessive. So when we carry out motor functions in a specific controlled way, we can retrain these nerve pathways, neuromuscular junctions and muscles to perform the motions we need them to be able to do with more balance, skill and proper function.

Knee Bends

To begin the knee bends, stand in a structurally aligned posture (as mentioned in a previous post), with feet facing straight forward/parallel, even to eachother, about one of your foots width apart from eachother, with about 80% of your weight distributed evenly over each heel. Then while not aiming to do a full squat, only a mild knee bend where we can feel the ankles reach the end of their range of motion; we slowly, begin lowering ourselves down by bending the knees – keeping our focus on maintaining an even balance, weight and cadence to the entire motion, down and up.

The key to getting the most out of this exercise is to keep equal effort on the part of each leg while keeping equal weight over each heel, and stopping and correcting before proceeding when the effort and or weight becomes imbalanced.

When first beginning these, one two count repetition down and up, can take several minutes and leave you feeling like to may need to shake out your arms or legs; though that’s a good sign that your activating and retraining your body.

The more we focus on finding and correcting imbalances in a slow and controlled motion, the better these exercises will work and the better we’ll be when performing motions and functions that demand much more effort and intensity.

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Toes Up Foot Up

To begin this exercise, simply sit comfortably on the floor with your back against a wall or strong vertical surface to give your back support, with the legs bent comfortably at the knee with the heels close to our glutes; then lift the toes and foot of the exercised leg toward the ceiling/sky (curl the toes back/up and lift the foot the same way) and then slowly push your heel/leg forward as if you’re doing a forward heel kick. Once the leg is straight along the floor with the toes and foot still curled and lifted back; we then point the foot and toes straight forward (similar to how a ballerinas foot looks standing on the toes) for about two to three seconds, before lifting the toes and foot again and then bringing the heel close to our glutes again, and relaxing back to the starting position.

This is a six count exercise, where we first lift the toes/foot, extend the leg/heel, point the toes/foot, lift the toes/foot, retract/pull back the heel/leg, and relax the toes/feet back on the floor again.

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Conclusion

The key again to getting the most out of the exercises is to find and correct imbalances by moving in a slow and controlled motion, that may feel awkward and strenuous at times. And again the more time and focus we take using these exercises to correct our neuromuscular patterning, the more ability and skill we’ll have later with more weight and intensity when we need it. Moving too fast to get more reps is the opposite of what this exercise is about.

I hope you enjoy this simple and straight to the point approach that you can hopefully use better and get more out of, though as always if you have any questions, feedback or any other thoughts you’d like to share always feel free to let me know!

All the best in good and better health,

Daniel Dunn, LMT
Owner & Bodyworker

 

Structurally Aligned Posture

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The posture assessment I do to aid with pain and injury relief and health cultivation, can easily take more than an hour if we talk about everything that goes into it. And it can be difficult to remember all we will or did talk about. So to help save us time during your appointment and remind you about the details, here’s an overview of basic structurally aligned posture that you can reference when you need to.

I normally say that it’s easiest to remember and realign ourselves into structurally aligned posture, by remembering; feet, hips, shoulders and head. The same way that we build a building is how we properly build our posture. With a proper foundation from the feet, stacking our joints over each other and being tall like we’re being pulled from the top of our head, we can literally pull ourselves together.

 

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I like to point out that we wont always be able to be in good posture all the time. And that being able to slightly improve our posture when we can’t can reap huge dividends in pain and injury prevention. And being able to align ourselves back into good posture (instead of overcompensating with more bad posture) after we’ve been in bad posture, can reap even bigger benefits over time.

Said in perhaps the simplest way possible, structurally aligned posture is;

Feet; even and parallel to each other, about one foot width apart from each other, aligned straight front to back from the back of the heel to the front of the second toe.

Hips; even side to side and front to back, measuring from the bony points on the front of the hips and the body knobs on the back of the hips (anterior superior iliac spine ASIS and posterior superior iliac spine PSIS).

Shoulders; even left to right at the tips of the shoulders (acromion processes) and even from to back from the top of the sternum (jugular notch of the manubrium) and the bony point that sticks out at the bottom back of our neck (spinous process of C7).

Head; jaw slightly down like a boxer with the head aligned with the rest of the body by aligning the auricle of the ear over the side of the shoulder (head of the humerus), over the side of the hip (greater trochanter of the femur), over the side of the ankle (lateral malleoulus).

There is clearly much more that I can continue to talk about though this here is much of what is covered in the assessment. So having this available before and after your visit we can save time during your appointment and make greater use of the massage therapy and keep you improving over time.

Again this is ‘just’ an overview of basic structurally aligned posture and much more will be covered during the assessment. Thank you for choosing me and Body Zen and I look forward to meeting you or working on you again soon!