Welcome to the Love your body Weblog,
My name is Ivan Waters, I am the founder of Loveyour body Pty Ltd and the Love your Body Challenge
In this blog I share thoughts, insights & throw down the gauntlet about fitness, nutrition & healthy mind training
You can also visit http://www.loveyourbody.com.au where are mission is to empower people to create sustainable healthy lifesty
Please feel free to email me ivan@loveyourbody.com.au
The Road to Fat-Ratsville: Over rewarded & under accomplished
I’ve been thinking about the nature of reward verses accomplishment, and I’ve developed an uncomfortable hypothesis: Our society is over rewarded & under accomplished, and it is turning us into “Fat-Rats”
A few days ago I was sitting in my favorite local café, treating myself to one of my favorite personal rewards – my black espresso coffee, about to start work for the day – when I started to wonder what I was really “rewarding” myself for?
For the briefest moment, I realized I was giving myself a reward for simply doing nothing….. Rapidly followed by about six quick justifications in a row:
“I deserve a treat occasionally (like every morning!)……”
“A coffee or two is really not such a bad vice compared with what most people do ….”
“I need it ……”
“Why can’t I just have what I want?”
“I can’t sit in the café doing work for a few hours and not order a coffee ….”
“It helps me relax & think ….”
“But I should get some reward for the good work I’m about to do ……”
Man! What a quagmire of mental gunk I’d stepped into.
How often do we want the “goodies” without doing the work?
Or how often do we give ourselves the “goodies” before doing the work?
And how often to we justify “goodies” as rewards for doing the work?
Why do we need rewards anyway?
My enlightened self was grasping something my indulgent self was trying to grease like a slippery eel
I reckon we reward ourselves with pleasurable things to compensate for being really bad at recognizing & being with accomplishment
We become addicted to quick & easy “outside” pleasurable stuff to stimulate the “feel good” responses in the body, instead of receiving these responses in a healthy & productive way
When we accomplish something & recognize this accomplishment, a sense of pleasure is ignited & radiates within us.
Just watch what happens when you recognize & acknowledge a child as they accomplish something for the first time! They beam! It’s so cool!
No outside “pleasure” reward is needed. The recognition is enough. The accomplishment itself is the reward!
Somewhere along the line as we “grow up” we go a little off track.
Anyhow …… I was wondering what it would be like to live a life of accomplishment verses a life of reward (And the irksome justifications and impacts that come with it).
I think there are two elements to living a life of accomplishment:
Anyhow I’m wondering if less reward & more accomplishment would benefit you?
If so, maybe you could play the Accomplishment Game with me for a week:
Definition: Accomplish: to carry out or complete something successfully
Rules of the Accomplishment Game:
Each day list 10 things you accomplished & allow yourself to experience the “feel-good” responses
For those that take on the game – I’d love to hear what happened out of playing the game
All the best
Crazey Ivan
ivan@loveyourbody.com.au
Getting your T-REX on!
Yesterday an amazing thing happened.
I’m on a holiday road trip with my wife and little boy. I borrowed a mountain bike and went for a ride. I found an awesome little 4×4 track & was having a fun time, when all of a sudden a T-REX jumped out of a bush on my left and tried to catch & eat me!
My adrenalin surged & my legs pumped. I blasted up the next 200m of track. I just got away from that T-REX by a cat’s whisker
Eat my dust T-REX!
My lungs were heaving, but I survived!
It felt amazing!
Later in the ride he tried to catch me again twice more, but I had his measure & made it home safely
Legend!
Now you might think, I’ve really gone a little crazey for sure this time, but I reckon inserting a T-REX (or similar) into your weekly exercise routine is just what you need
Let me digress……
In the Love your Body Challenge 10 Week body transformation program there are several Key Principles in the exercise program
“Survival Sprints” are one of these!
I define Survival Sprints as: A maximal sprint of between 10 – 60 seconds as if your life depended on it
Just imagine suddenly being chased by a wild head-hunter, a buffalo, a crocodile, a tiger, a rhino, a starving rabbit that thinks you are a carrot, or anything else that you imagine that gets you going
Whatever forms of fitness training you choose you will need to be active for a
minimum of just 20 min to a maximum of 60 min at a relaxed and sustainable pace and include 2 – 4 Survival Sprints in your session
Survival Sprints have multiple benefits:
Important points about doing Survival Sprints:
1. For the first 3 weeks do NOT sprint at 100% capacity – Start out at 75% then
80%, 85%, 90%, 95% before you test yourself at 100%
2. Be responsible for any injuries – choose appropriate exercises
3. Do not do this high intensity training if you are sick or not in good health
4. Warm-up (at least 5 min) and cool down (at least 5 min) as a part of your
So …… here’s a challenge for you:
Over the next few weeks training: Get your T-REX on!
Good luck & may you feel the thrill of being a survivor!
Crazey Ivan
Congratulations! You are a winner!
That’s got a nice ring to it eh?
Well in this case, congratulations to all those that took up Crazey Ivan’s Challenge: The Perfect Storm – creating 3 days of 100% healthy food, exercise & mind training.
It was not for the faint hearted.
The winner of the Challenge was Karen Kirke, who gets bragging rights & I’ll be sending her a copy of a really cool book by Tony Buzan, called “Head Strong”: How to be mental & physically fit!
Also, a highly commended mention goes to Natasha Mills for her efforts in the face of adversity!
I was a little amused by parts of Karen’s 3 day perfect storm report, but I thought it was a good opportunity to get on the soap box (like I need an excuse) about the benefits of eating natural & unprocessed foods: fruit, veggies, eggs, nuts & some meats.
Karen said:
“When I first read your 3 day challenge, I thought ‘perfect timing’ as I had taken up your advice from the LYB challenge and put a structure in place re my exercise. I had joined a bootcamp and was exercising with them on Thursday and Friday mornings 6am to 7am ! Unheard of for me to get out of bed at 5:30am (unless it was a small child’s cry)
So I figured I had 2 days of the exercise challenge sorted!
But the most obvious benefit/reminder I got from the 3 days eating only natural unprocessed foods was how clean my digestive system felt….really cleaned out.
It was kind of like a mini cleanse. I like the feeling of being really empty when I pass motion and the only times I experience this is when I have a very high natural unprocessed diet. Not the best dinner table conversation but …..
Thanks for the opportunity to remind myself of this clean/good/thoroughly empty feeling in my digestive tract !!”
LOL. Thanks Karen!
You body is optimally adapted for this stuff. Eating this way feels great, but it does take some personal leadership.
I am often frustrated about media advertising that “whole grains” are so great because they contain fibre! Give me a break! Eat some raw fruit and vegetables for a few days and see of your digestive system starts working properly! And what’s more: High in vitamins & minerals, high water content, more filling and no toxic gluten & high sugar loads!
Anyhow, great work to all those that took up the gauntlet, of the 3 Day Perfect Storm!
Stay tuned for Crazey Ivan’s next members Challenge
I am always amazed at how simple life really is
And what’s even more amazing is my extraordinary ability to make it complicated, confusing and frustrating
I wonder if I am the only one with this ability
So I’m going to try to make this very simple
To create a healthy lifestyle & a body you love you need to do these 3 simple things on most days of your life:
Develop ways to practice these three simple things on most days of your life and you will create the Perfect Storm – an unstoppable force of nature!
“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”
— George Bernard Shaw
Crazey Ivan’s Love your Body Members Challenge:
THE THREE DAY PERFECT STORM
Winner receives:
A copy of the classic book (now out of print) by Tony Buzan – Head Strong
But more importantly: Get crowned The 2010 Perfect Storm Challenge winner with awesome bragging rights as a “FORCE of NATURE!”
Rules:
All the best
Crazey Ivan
It’s not often that I see an advertisement on television for food that I think. Yeah! …. Great Ad. ….. great product.
But I just saw one!
Congratulations to the guys who put this togeather. Awesome work!
I’m definitely going to be buying these in the future. Oh… I already do!
Well if nothing else – I feel even better about buying them!
Check it out:
http://www.oneadaysuperfood.com.au/apple_info/apple_videos/
The only thing I could add is – go organic.
Better soils = better apples.
No chemical pesticides & herbicides = Better You
Don’t be afraid to keep the Doctor away!
Crunch time!
Now I might not be heading for “So you think you can dance” stardom, but a regular victory dance is good for the soul.
I am sometimes prone to doing a little victory dance to help me celerbrate victories… big and small.
I’m often rabiting on about the mind-body connection …. and today is no different.
Talk about mojo boosting 101. Victory dancing is nothing but mojo enhancing.
I’m throwing down a challenge – create a victory dance to help you celebrate a victory – and try to tell me it doesn’t feel good, put a smile on your face and improve your health!
A word of warning – Victory Dances are contageous and can lead to outrageous and rediculous victories popping up everywhere!
Size Matters
What does the size of the problems in your life say about you?
Now you might think I’m crazy when I say this – but when it comes to the problems in your life – Size Matters, but not how you think it might!
Now if you’ll bear with me….
The problem with your problems is they are NOT BIG ENOUGH!
Well at least this holds true for most of us most of the time…..
Let me explain ….
Firstly, one of the problems with problems is that we think they are “bad” and don’t won’t to deal with them, and we resist them.
And what we resist, persists
OK ….. step one is to accept your problems fully – in fact – embrace them.
Step two, is to stop trying to get around your problems, or find easy solutions and start to deal with it directly.
Step three is to get honest with yourself about your mental attitude about the problems in your life.
Consider that whenever you create a “problem” in your life, you also create yourselves in the process, and most of the time it belittles you – you unconsciously limit yourself by judging yourself as somebody who has trouble dealing with that type of thing.
Your behavior and actions will fall in line with your own created opinions of yourself and pretty soon the people around you will start to relate to you as the person you created yourself as. They’re feedback to you will reinforce your own opinion of yourself and you become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Their opinions won’t change until, yours does, after a consistent change in behavior and action
Now; time for the good stuff – some mental gymnastics that may give you a new perspective on your problems.
Human beings are creatures of context and comparison – that’s what Einstein’s law or relativity is all about.
But anyhow, this article is about something we have a better chance of grasping!
It’s about a type of mental framework called context, in this case:
SIZE Matters!
I’ll tell you a little story of a client of mine, who after some discussion with me decided to help 3 friends also get fit and lose weight as a way of supporting her achieve her own fitness & weight loss goals – a great idea – when you lead the way for others we often put greater effort in ourselves!
I then said to her: that’s not enough people!
She looked at me a little peeved and begrudgedly said “OK …… I’ll help 4 people!”
I said “No way! Multiply it by ten!”
She screeched “40 PEOPLE! – NO WAY!” and actually got angry and that was the end of our session!
Well, next we spoke – she was a different woman, all excited and busy telling me how she had gotten a group together from her work, that included a bunch of people from her work for lunchtime and after-work socializing and playing sports, and stuff like organising a salad bar at the work canteen. She had also taken up spending time with her niece, helping her with her basketball training, by volunteering as an assistant for the team (about another 12 people). Also the 3 original friends had also added people to the pool, including their friends, family and work colleagues, and to total number of people she was helping; was now more like 60! And thats not including the people those people then when on the help!
She was thrilled! She lost more weight and got fitter that she had ever expected and kept it off, she also enrolled to train to be a basketball coach (she had been a keen player in her younger days) and now coaches her nieces basket ball team – which she says is one of the joys of her life!
All her friends and work colleagues suddenly changed the way they related to her! She has never been the same
The SIZE of your problem matters
Consider what action you would take:
If you saw a 50 cent piece under a parked car – just out of reach
Or
If someone you loved, was trapped under the car and only had minutes to live if you didn’t help
Consider what action you would take:
If you needed $30 extra to buy organic meat & vegetables each week
Or
If you needed to raise $1,000,000 to build a health centre in your area, so the local families didn’t have to travel 200km to the nearest hospital to have access to health care
OK, now let’s get back to your problems:
How would making your problem, bigger, MUCH BIGGER actually help you?
When I started reading about this stuff, I was amazed everybody was not eating it.
The more you find out about this stuff the better it gets!
But then again maybe it is because Mac’s doen’t have it on their menu or maybe it’s because everybody doesn’t know how good it is for them?
Superfood: Spirulina
Spirulina is incredibly good for you & incredibly good for the environment.
Spirulina is an ancient single-celled, blue-green spiral algae, that grows in fresh water alkaline environments. It is very hardy stuff and retains it’s abundant nutrition even when dried out or heated.
It was a major part of traditional Mexican, Aztec and African (around Lake Chad) diets
Spirulina is an incredible food, it contains:
• 65 – 71% protein – the highest protein concentration of any food, including 18 amino acids and all 8 essential amino acids (including tryptophan – very important for brain function as the precursor to serotonin – the anti-stress, feel good hormone)
• Is rich in vitamins A (beta-carotene), B1, B2, B6, E & K.
• Has as much iron as red meat
• Very high in chlorophyll, healthy mineral salts, phytonutrients, enzymes
• Very powerful array of anti-oxidants including:
o Beta-Carotene & other carotenoids – important for life span & immune function
o Chlorophyll
o Zeaxanthin –important for vision
o Superoxide dismutase (SOD) – one of the most important human detoxification enzymes & anti-oxidants
o Phycocyanin – Blue pigment know to powerfully boost stem cell production and immune system
• Very high in Gamma-Linolenic Acid (GLA) – an essential fatty acid with anti-inflammatory properties. Important for skin, hair and inflammatory disorders
Spirulina yields 200 times more protein per acre than beef, is 4 times more absorbable and doesn’t need to be cooked, so half the protein isn’t lost in the cooking process
Spirulina is usually in powdered form and can simply be added to water and drunk, starting from 5g up to 30+ grams per day
This is one of my favourite ways to get a quick dose of super healthy nutrition into my body.
My body just love’s this stuff.
I’m sure yours will too!
I usually have one most days, eaither for breaky, or at lunch or an afternoon snack:
The amazing green drink recipe:
Serves: 1 – 2
Ingredients
1/2 cup of water
1 -2 pieces of fruit (e.g. pineapple, kiwi fruit)
1 – 2 serves of veggies (e.g. baby spinich, carrot)
100 ml Monavie (19 superfruits including Acai)
1 serve of Vital greens
Optional Extras:
Herbs: e.g. mint, ginger
An egg (for extra protien)
Nuts and seeds (e.g. flax seeds)
Seaweed
other superfoods
Your vitamin tables (blendable ones anyhow)
Method:
Simply toss it the ingredients in a blender or use a bar mix (not a juicer that removes the pulp)
Serve in a glass and drink or with a spoon and have it like a cold soup
The Mind Detox & Health Retreat is coming to Australia!
I’m very excited to announce some local dates for later this year:
Public Mind Detox Retreat: 15 – 19th Nov 2010 at Dunkeld, Victoria Australia
We’ll be hosting the Retreat at the Mt Sturgeon Homestead and Cottages – One of my favourite places!
I saw sandy on the lifestyle channel on Austar at the begining of the year, and was quite impressed with the way he works with people to use their mind to support healing within the body.
It is such an important and developing science. It is an exciting time; where reputable & proven methodoligies are starting to find their way into mainstream health practice
As many of you know I’m a big advocate of mind training as a part of a healthy & vital lifestyle. Sandy has done some similar & excellent work in this area
Check out his website:
http://www.sandynewbigging.com
I’ve been working with Sandy over the last couple of months to confirm a Retreat & Practitioner training program here in Australia, later this year
The Retreat is awesome value (Actually I reckon it’s too cheap – but he won’t take my advice)
Price: AUD$2495 (save a massive AUD$500 if you bring a friend or share your room – making the price only AUD$1995 per person)
Mind Detox Method Masterclass Practitioner Training: 22 – 25 Nov 2010
I’ll be working with Sandy on both these programs, so they are going to be some of the best stuff Sandy has done! Seriously exciting stuff!
Places this year will be very limited. (Only a handful of people will be able to attend)
So if you are interested in either of these programs let me know ASAP or get intouch with Sandy via his website
Here are a couple of video’s about Sandy the Mind Detox Method
Part 1:
Part 2:
All the Best
Crazey Ivan
Love Your Body 
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