Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Sports Nutrition Olympic Athletes

The PyeongChang Olympics or officially known as the XXIII Olympic Winter Games just ended. It marks the first time South Korea has hosted the Winter Olympics. The games featured 102 events in fifteen sports and over 2,900 athletes were competing.
These athletes are the cream of the crop. Many of them train 30 hours a week for over a year to get into the Olympics. This shows determination, courage, mental toughness, discipline, self-belief and self-direction, clear purpose/vision, and great skill. This also requires great stamina, good nutrition and a lot оf hard wоrk аnd dеdісаtіоn to bе ѕuссеѕѕful.
Olympians are great role models for us all. Congratulations to all the participants of the Olympics.
Thе іmроrtаnсе аnd іmрасt of good sports nutrition cannоt be underestimated. Elite athletes tаkе nutrіtіоn seriously. Until recently, only bоdу-buіldеrѕ looked at sports nutrition аѕ a priority fоr optimum performance, but that has now changed. Athletes realize that fоr a grеаt реrfоrmаnсе іn any ѕроrt, sports nutrition is indispensable. Good sports nutrition may dеtеrmіnе winning or lоѕіng for the athletes.
Thе nutrіеntѕ nееdеd аrе саrbоhуdrаtеѕ, рrоtеіn, fаt, vіtаmіnѕ, minerals and water. Different sports hаvе different nееdѕ. Thе requiremеntѕ of thеѕе nutrіеntѕ stretch bеtwееn рrе-еxеrсіѕе, durіng-еxеrсіѕе and роѕt-еxеrсіѕе. An аthlеtе’ѕ dіеt, duе tо the іntеnѕе trаіnіng, requires аn іnсrеаѕеd аmоunt оf nutrіеntѕ.
Athlеtеѕ іn different ѕроrtѕ аррrоасh their dіеtѕ differently. Pоwеr ѕроrt athletes mау tаkе сrеаtіnе аnd рrоtеіn to increase muscle size аnd еxрlоѕіvеnеѕѕ. Endurаnсе ѕроrt аthlеtеѕ may tаkе energy drinks and lоаd up with саrbоhуdrаtе рrіоr tо exercise tо maximize thеіr еndurаnсе. Durіng exercise, mоѕt competitors wіll drink рlеntу оf fluіdѕ, аnd consume аddіtіоnаl рrоduсtѕ such аѕ electrolyte drinks аnd energy bars tо bооѕt their performance. If thеу take ѕuррlеmеntѕ, thеу hаvе tо еnѕurе thаt thеу dо not inadvertently іnсludе any іllеgаl ѕubѕtаnсеѕ.
Because of the testing that the athletes know they are going to go through, to make sure they are not getting an unfair advantage, many of them turn to Shaklee products. The Shaklee performance line has been used by Olympic athletes for many years now. Instead of taking creatine, which can damage the kidneys, they use the clinically proven protein powders to build muscle naturally. Instead of poorly formulated energy drinks with artificial ingredients, they use teas and chews that are totally free of banned substances and have no artificial sweeteners or preservatives and no chemical stimulants.
Shaklee Pure Performance Team is an amazing group of world-class athletes. These elite athletes have the most stringent anti-doping regulations in sports. So, what they put into their bodies is critically important to them to ensure they’re not only getting the performance and efficacy they need to compete, but also guaranteed quality and purity. These top athletes—who have already won a combined 137 gold, silver and bronze medals at the Summer and Winter Games—all choose to use Shaklee.
They love that the products are from the #1 Wellness Brand and that they work. The athletes feel well fueled and given their track record of winning medals, they know the products energize at a cellular level.
So, you don’t have the be an Olympic athlete to get these products. They are available for us weekend warriors as well. Personally, I love the electrolyte drink to get me through my vigorous Zumba classes.
To your good health!
Charlene

Monday, February 19, 2018

Emotional Intelligence – An Important Leadership Skill

This is the ability to identify and manage our own emotions and recognize, understand or influence the emotions of others. It affects how we manage behavior, navigate social complexities, and make personal decisions to achieve positive results. Emotional intelligence is recognized to be one of the most important predictors of personal, business and professional success.
The model introduced by Daniel Goleman focuses on emotional intelligence as a wide array of competencies and skills that drive leadership performance. Goleman’s model outlines four main EQ constructs:
  1. Self-awareness – the ability to read one’s emotions and recognize their impact while using gut feelings to guide decisions.
  2. Self-management – involves controlling one’s emotions and impulses and adapting to changing circumstances.
  3. Social awareness – the ability to sense, understand, and react to other people’s emotions while comprehending social networks.
  4. Relationship management – the ability to inspire, influence, and develop others while managing conflict.

Irene Becker in her 3Q leadership model has a list of the major emotional intelligence competencies that make up a fully integrated personality:
  1. Emotional Self-awareness – The degree to which you can notice your feelings, label them and attribute them properly.
  2. Emotional Expression – The ability to express your feelings and gut-level instincts. Emotional expression is an integral part of your day.
  3. Emotional Awareness of Others – The ability to hear, sense or intuit what other people may be feeling from their words, body language (non- verbal) or other direct or indirect clues.
  4. Creativity Tapping into the multiple non-cognitive resources that help us envision new ideas, frame alternative solutions and find effective ways of doing things.
  5. Resilience/Flexibility/Adaptability. The ability to bounce back, be flexible, and retain curiosity and hope in the face of adversity, change or challenge.
  6. Interpersonal Connections – Creating and sustaining a network of people with whom you can be your real and whole self. Where there is real communication.
  7. Constructive Discontent – The ability to stay calm focused and emotionally grounded in disagreement or conflict.
  8. Outlook/Optimism – Being positive and optimistic.
  9. Compassion/Empathy – The ability to be empathic, appreciate and honor others’ feelings.
  10. Intuition – The ability to notice, trust and use your hunches, gut-level reactions, and other non-cognitive responses produced by the senses, emotions, mind and body.
  11. Intentionality: Saying what you mean and meaning what you say; being willing to forego distractions and temptations in order to be responsible for your actions and your motives.
  12. Trust radius – Believing people are “good” until proven otherwise. Alternatively overcoming being too trusting.
  13. Personal Power – Believing you can meet challenges and live the life you choose.
Instead of taking an assessment, you can see what Dr. Travis Bradberry says about the 18 signs that you have a high EQ.
  1. People with high EQs master their emotions because they understand them, and they use an extensive robust vocabulary of feelings to do so.
  2. Emotionally intelligent people are curious about everyone around them.
  3. Emotionally intelligent people are flexible and are constantly adapting and embracing to change.
  4. Having a high EQ means they know their strengths and how to lean into and use them to your full advantage while keeping their weaknesses from holding them back.
  5. Much of emotional intelligence comes down to social awareness; the ability to read other people, know what they’re about, and understand what they’re going through.
  6. Emotionally intelligent people are self-confident, open-minded and difficult to offend.
  7. Emotional intelligence means knowing how to exert self-control. They delay gratification and avoid impulsive action. They know how to say no (to self and others).
  8. Emotionally intelligent people let go of their mistakes but do so without forgetting them.
  9. Emotionally intelligent people give and expect nothing in return.
  10. Emotionally intelligent people don’t hold grudges.
  11. High-EQ individuals neutralize toxic people and control their interactions with toxic people by keeping their feelings in check. They consider the difficult person’s standpoint and can find solutions and common ground.
  12. Emotionally intelligent people won’t set perfection as their target because they know that it doesn’t exist.
  13. Emotionally intelligent people work daily to cultivate an attitude of gratitude.
  14. Emotionally intelligent people disconnect. They take regular time off the grid.
  15. High-EQ individuals know that caffeine is trouble, and they limit their caffeine intake.
  16. High-EQ individuals know that their self-control, attention, and memory are all reduced when they don’t get enough–or the right kind–of sleep. So, they make sleep a top priority.
  17. Emotionally intelligent people separate their thoughts from the facts to escape the cycle of negativity and move toward a positive, new outlook. They stop negative self-talk in its tracks.
  18. When emotionally intelligent people feel good about something they’ve done, they won’t let anyone limit their joy.
The good news is that not only can emotional intelligence competencies be increased, but EQ will help us build the leadership, transparent communication and collaboration to lead better lives, do better business and contribute to a better world.

To your success!
Charlene

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Let Fear Fuel You

We all want different things out of life. Some of us are entrepreneurs and want to change the world. Some of us are employees wanting to pay all the bills. Some of us are homemakers making sure our children are looked after well. Some of us are students wanting to get the best grades.
Wherever you are in life, we are striving for something else, something better. In the process, we are bound to meet with failure and feel fear.
What is fear? Fear really is a protective mechanism because if we did not have it, we may not back away from legitimate threats. But where it holds us back is when the situations are far from being life-threatening.
Fear is an emotion. Notice the word emotion. It contains the word motion. We live in a sea of motion as everything is energy. So, the energy of fear is energy in motion. Energy is what we need to move.
In the body, fear is a chain reaction in the brain that starts with a stressful stimulus and ends with the release of chemicals. These chemicals produce a fight-or-flight response or sometimes a freeze response. The stimulus could be a real threat or a perceived threat.
The brain is part of the central nervous system where information is evaluated and decisions made. It is a very complex organ and connects to the peripheral nervous system. This allows it to receive and interpret the messages from all parts of the body. Some of these communications lead to conscious thought and action, while others produce autonomic responses. The fear response is almost entirely autonomic.
Some of the parts of the brain involved with the fear response are the thalamus, the sensory cortex, the hippocampus, the hypothalamus and the amygdala. The amygdala is interesting as it decodes emotions, determines possible threats, and stores fear memories. It is part of our survival instinct. This survival instinct is our most powerful drive but it is largely unconscious and genetically hard-wired into our DNA.
So sometimes the fears we have, may have been genetically passed down to us. This means they are so unconscious, we don’t even know they are there. So, the first step to working with fear is to become conscious that it is there.
This can be tricky as we have developed habits that may have come out of an old belief that was based on fear. So sometimes we need a pair of eyes outside ourselves to show us the way that fear is holding us back.
For some fears though, we know they are there every time we try to do something different. Our brain does not like change as our whole nervous system is wired to keep us safe. So, when we try something new, there is a fear that comes up as we don’t know if we will be able to do the new thing.
We must separate ourselves from the fear and realize that it is just an energy. Once we see it as energy and not ourselves, then we can utilize that energy. We can use that energy to do the thing that frightens us. Some will call this facing our fears or shining the light on them. Once we separate ourselves from our fear then we can see it is an illusion.
This will help us reframe it and use the energy of it to our advantage. So next time there is something new that you are faced with and it scares you, separate from the fear and let it fuel the thing you want to change.
Through action, you can transcend your fears.
To your success!
Charlene

Tuesday, February 6, 2018

My Ayurvedic Medicine Adventure

Out of curiosity, I went to see a visiting Ayurvedic doctor who was here from India. I knew a little about Ayurvedic medicine through all my studying of health over the years but there is always more to learn. So, I decided to be adventurous and see what else I could learn.
Ayurveda means a science of life (Ayur = life, Veda = science or knowledge). Ayurvedic medicine originated in India more than 3,000 years ago and remains one of the country’s traditional healthcare systems. Those who practice Ayurvedic medicine believe every person is made of five basic elements found in the universe: space, air, fire, water, and earth.
It’s based on the belief that health and wellness depend on a delicate balance between the mind, body, and spirit. Its main goal is to promote good health, not fight disease. But treatments may be geared toward specific health problems.
This doctor was from southern India and has an Ayurvedic medicine clinic over there that anyone can go to. He was just here for two weeks in Canada to see new and existing clients.
The first thing he did was check my pulses on the inside of my wrist. This procedure is very helpful in assessing and diagnosing. He was checking the health of all the major organ systems in my body. Traditional pulse diagnosis assesses up to 28 different qualities of the pulse. It takes many years of practice to get good at it.
After the pulse diagnosis, he told me my doshas. Doshas are the life forces or energies. They control how your body works. They are Vata dosha; Pitta dosha; and Kapha Dosha. He told me my two were Vata and Pitta. Everyone inherits a unique mix of the three doshas. But one is usually stronger than the others. Each one controls a different body function. Vata was my main life force. Pitta was my next one.
Vata derives from the elements of Space and Air and translates as “wind” or “that which moves things”. The Vata people are active, creative, and gifted with a natural ability to express and communicate. Pitta derives from the elements of Fire and Water and translates as “that which cooks.” The balanced Pitta type is blessed with a joyful disposition, a sharp intellect, and tremendous courage and drive. Kapha derives from the elements of Earth and Water and translates as “that which sticks”. Kapha people have a loving and calm disposition and Kapha dosha governs love, patience, and forgiveness.
Using that information, he proceeded to create an individual health program for my combination of doshas. It consisted of a daily routine, including meditation, the best foods and physical activities suited to the Vata Dosha. I found out the best time to eat fruit for me is between 11 and 4 p.m. He was impressed with my current diet as we went over the foods. He did comment that I needed to get to bed earlier than I am used to. So that is my challenge this year.
At the end of the whole session, he commented on how healthy I was for my age and said I could be a role model for others. I told him that was my aim. I told him I take whole food supplements and that helps me stay young and healthy.
So, my Ayurvedic medicine adventure was both fun and informative. It confirmed I am on the right track and if you need any help to get on your right track, please reach out.
To your good health!
Charlene