Time for New Beginnings and a Merry Christmas!!

Hello to all of my wonderful friends! It has truly felt like a long time since I wrote my last post. I am back! Here I am again... alive, vibrant, awake, and full of gratitude!!

The Holiday Season is one of my most favorite times of year. The excitement, joy, sharing, giving, appreciating, and all round beauty of this jolly time are truly wondrous! I love seeing the smiles on people of all sizes, ages, and shapes as they wait anxiously for what Santa will bring. I love listening to the joyous tunes and melodies that can be heard at this merry time of year. I love the abundance of giving that manifests at this unique time each year. Merry Christmas Friends! I wish for you a most extraordinary Christmas Holiday and a truly majestic New Year!!

Today is one of the first days of the new winter season. Winter Solstice has welcomed us all into a new beautiful time of year. This is a wonderful time of year to spend time with those you love and care about. It is also a time where we reflect on the past year and dream and plan for what we want in the New Year!

The Year of 2012 is nearly over and the year of 2013 is just about to begin. Now is the time to bask in the abundance and goodness of the experiences and adventures of the last year, and plan for the new adventures in the New Year!

Right now is a special time. It is a time of celebration , love, and sharing. It is also a time to appreciate and create a new beginning.

I have had an incredible year filled with a variety of crazy and amazing  happenings, and I am so excited for the phenomenal and glorious year that is to come.

Merry Christmas Friends!!! Blessings to you and your loved ones! Happy New Year! May the New Year be filled with great health, joy, freedom, expansion, and abundance for us all!

All About Joy

Why does experiencing joy feel so wonderful? Can joy be purchased? Can joy be quantified to a particular size? Is joy the focus or is it the automatic result from another event? What is joy?

Joy to me is that glorious and wonderful emotion you feel when happiness is gurgling up from your stomach and you just want to laugh. Joy is that feeling of satisfaction from within your bones that tells you that your life is one glorious adventure.

Joy is that thrill of the driving force inside you, giving you ultimate belief and knowing that you have the power to make and change the world around you. Joy brings faith and courage in doses unmatched by any other feeling and gives you the strength and power to prevail through challenges and hardships. Like the muscles in your body that take you where you want to go everyday, joy is the feeling that gives wings to your heart and soul.

Joy is that feeling that often comes and goes like the ebb & flow of the ocean tide or the inhalation and exhalation of your breath. Joy comes and it goes, but it is always sweet when it arrives. Joy is that feeling you get when you realize that everything is working out in your life. Joy is that moment you appreciate the abundance filling your life and smiles begin to appear all over your face.

Joy is that high you feel when you can so vividly imagine something so wonderful, so extraordinary and so special to your being. Joy is the excitement of knowing that manifestations are appearing all throughout your life, bringing you the realization that your hands, feet, back, eyes, and mind really are making your dreams come true. Joy is that feeling you feel when you bask in the feeling of appreciation and love for yourself, your loved ones and friends, the world, and the universe as a whole.

What is life all about anyway?... Is it about being named the best at what you do? Is life about making lots of money? Is it about how many friends you have? Is it about how often you go on vacations? What is life about??????

I believe life is about experiencing JOY all throughout your amazing life! We were born into our life knowing that we were going to have to grow and expand into who we want to be. There may most definitely be times where you may not feel like smiling, but you will find that joy is always there waiting for you to reach for it. JOY is always in reach! JOY really does feel absolutely incredible!! Experiencing and finding JOY in your life really is a choice.

Happy JOY to you, your friends, and to this grand and glorious world we all share!!!

GO ORGANIC

Why Eat Organic? Here are a few reasons to consider:

No GMOs -- Organic food regulations forbid the use of genetically engineered seeds or animals (including clones).  I will definately be sharing more about GMO (Genetically Modified) foods in the near future.

Avoid Pesticides and other Chemicals -- Synthetic pesticides and chemicals have inherent toxicity due to their intent to kill living organisms considered as "pests". Many of the pesticides used in the production of our food are becoming known to cause negative health issues.

Avoid Bad Hormones in Animal Products -- The FDA currently permits six kinds of steroid hormones to be used in cattle and sheep production. An estimate percentage of 80% of the US feedlot cattle are injected or fed with steroid hormones.  These drugs end up in the products sold for consumption.

Prevent Antibiotic Resistance -- Massive use of antibiotics in the meat and dairy industries is causing many people to develop dangerous antibiotic resistant infections.

Stay Slim or Get Slim -- More than 90% of of hormone-disrupting pesticides found in consumed foods, especially animal products, will remain in your body tissue for unknown lengths of time.

Food Tastes Better -- Without the pesticides, chemicals, and preservatives found in conventionally grown food, organic food is likely to be much fresher and often tastier.

More Nutritious Food -- Organic fruits and vegetables have higher antioxidant levels. The antioxidants are the mechanism in Organic food that fights off bugs/pests. The antioxidants are the plants own "immune system". Conventionally grown food relies on pesticides to kill the bugs, causing these plants to produce less antioxidants.  Antioxidants are very important for us to ingest, as part of  healthy eating habits.

Diet Diversification -- By eating "in-season" organic foods, you will have a diversified fruit and vegetable palette and increase your intake of beneficial phytochemicals by eating really fresh food.

Save the Earth -- Organic farming uses 30% less fossil fuels while it conserves water, reduces soil erosion, maintains soil quality, and removes carbon dioxide from the air.

Organic food does indeed cost more than non-organic food. I strongly believe that buying organic is worth the extra cost. Eating organic foods versus non-organic foods could end up saving you a tremendous amount of money in medical bills for everything from over-the-counter temporary aids to doctor visits & medicines to, goodness forbid, chemotherapy or diabetic therapy & drugs. In addition to your personal health, the environmental impact of switching to organic eating and buying habits is extremely beneficial to the world we live in and share with all of humanity. What we buy and support today will determine the world of tomorrow into which future generations will be born. What type of a world do you want your children and grand-children to live in?

Use your money to buy ORGANIC food!! The more people who buy and eat organic, the more prices will drop. Remember that as demand goes up, supply will go up, and prices will come down. Use your dollars wisely --- buy organic!!

According to Jillian Michaels, internationally acclaimed fitness & nutrition guru, the best way to avoid 90% of all hormone-disrupting agents in our food supply is to "Go Organic". Her quote below painted a vivid and eye-opening scene in my mind and I want to share this excerpt with you from her book.

With many cancer fighting health benefits, organic tomatoes are extremely healthy for you. In Jillian Michaels book, Master Your Metabolism, she discusses the journey of a conventional tomato from field to dinner plate.

"The tomato is grown conventionally, and sprayed with up to seven kinds of pesticides. Then it is packed too early because it must make the long journey across the country - or across the world - from its original location to your supermarket. Yes, you are now polluting the environment with all the gas used to transport the tomato. But there's more. The tomato is still green because it was picked too early, so now it is sprayed with argon gas (also used to euthanize dogs) to make it turn red prematurely. WOW! We have just taken God's natural medicine and turned it into poison - for us and our environment. That is why we simply must make efforts to go organic."
 

 GO ORGANIC! BUY ORGANIC!! EAT ORGANIC!!!

 

 

And please, please, please choose the Local options for buying your food first. Farmers Markets, Food Co-ops, and local organic dairies are all great options. You have tremendous power with your buying habits. Be conscious and make choices that support local organic farming in your community. If you have to shop at the bigger retail chain stores, be conscious from where it is your food is coming and choose organic whenever possible!

Food for Thought: The closer you are to the origin from where your food is coming, it is likely that less energy was required to bring it to your market. Be conscious & mindful!! Choose options that are healthy for you and healthy for the planet WE ALL share.

Also I encourage you to check out this website http://www.organic.org/

Have fun on this journey of being "Fit for Life"!

Little Things Add Up to BIG Things

Why is it that some people are extremely successful in various areas of their life? Why is that some people always seem to achieve their goals, while others do not? You may have heard it said before that successful people do the things that unsuccessful people are not willing to do. So what are those things that successful people do?

Two authors that have eloquently & simply answered these questions are Darren Hardy, Publisher of SUCCESS Magazine and author of The Compound Effect, and Jeff Olson, author of The Slight Edge and internationally acclaimed personal development coach and business leader. Reading these two books has begun to change my life in dramatic ways. Doing the little simple things everyday really does make a difference. The little things are easy to do, but easier not to do. So the question is, do you really want to make your goals happen? If you do, then you must embrace the power of the "Compound Effect" in your life.

In the words of Jeff Olson, author of the The Slight Edge, "Successful people just do the things that seem to make no difference in the act of doing them and they do them over and over and over until the compound effect kicks in."

 

Jeff Olson continues on to say that, "The right choices you make today, compounded over time, will take you higher and higher up the success curve of this real-time movie called 'your life'. Every action that is easy to do, is also easy not to do. If you don't do them, you won't suffer, or fail, or blow it - today. But that simple error in judgement, compounded over time will ruin your chances for success. Position your daily actions so time is working for you instead of against you. Because time will either promote you or expose you."

• Do you have fitness goals you want to reach?
• Nutrition and diet goals?
• How about goals in your profession, business or financial life?
• What about goals relating to your family or relationships?

If you do, then COMMIT TODAY to take the small every day steps that will add up over time to something massive. This means, that one must cultivate patience and realize that there is no "microwave" for your goals. The "big break" happens when you have been doing the little things consistently. It rarely just happens out of nowhere. So if you cannot count on the "big break" to just happen, then it means you must start with the little things EVERY DAY!!

If you want to loose 20 or 30 pounds of excess weight, then waiting for yourself to just wake up one morning, having lost the weight, will not work. You must start taking the small steps every day to exercise, eat healthy & weight balancing foods, drink lots of water, reduce stress, and get a good night's sleep most nights.

If you want to increase your financial health, collect the coins and change that gathers in your purse or wallet everyday and put it into a savings jar. Pennies really do add up!! Make a plan for how you are going to pay off credit card debt, and stop using the credit cards to make new purchases. Make a plan and then take daily action steps to how you can increase cash flow into your household.

Below is a video featuring Darren Hardy, Publisher of SUCCESS Magazine and mentor to high-performance CEOS and regular every day winners like us. If you have not read The Compound Effect then I highly recommend checking out this video and reading this book.

 

To purchase The Compound Effect go to: http://www.thecompoundeffect.com/ or check your local used book store. Your local library may have a copy of this book as well.
 

Do you want a miracle to happen?

Be the miracle.

Be the miracle that happens everyday, even if you cannot see the real live manifestations today. Keep up the consistency and over time you will see results! Trust me!!!

Water is the Sparkling Diamond!

Drinking more water is something everyone knows that they should do, but many do not drink more water. Why? Perhaps if you knew why drinking water was good for you, you would have a strong enough reason to make it happen. Perhaps if you made a daily commitment to yourself to drink a certain amount of water, you would. Health experts from throughout the country predict that at least 75% of Americans are completely dehydrated. Are you?

Every cell and organ in your body requires water to properly function. Water is needed to build healthy new blood and bone cells. Water also helps your lymphatic system process effectively to remove toxins & wastes from your body. By drinking more water, your body will be much less sore and the water will help to lubricate your joints and reduce/prevent joint pain.

While your insides are benefiting from increased water flow, your skin will benefit as well. Drinking more water will not necessarily get rid of all your wrinkles and fine lines, yet more water intake will dramatically increase the health and vitality of your skin, your body's largest organ. Here is how I look at the situation. When you soak a raisin in water, thus hydrating it, it will not look like the original grape did, however it will no longer be a raisin...

Water also helps to regulate your metabolism. If you are experiencing undesired weight gain or you are trying to loose weight, drinking water will greatly help your body to become more balanced to make weight loss possible. Also drinking water instead of a soda will help keep your calorie intake down and your ingestion of refined, processed sugars to a bare minimum.

You may be asking, "So how much water do I drink?" I have found that the following formula works best for me along with a variety of the health world's top professionals.

"Drink half of your body weight in ounces of water."
Body Weight in pounds divided by 2 = Ounces of water to drink daily 

(Example if you weigh 160 pounds, drink 80 ounces of water per day.)

It is IMPORTANT to drink the majority of your water on an empty stomach. If you drink lots of water while ingesting food, you will be watering down the enzymes needed to properly digest your food.

I carry a glass water bottle with me all day. I have found that I do most my drinking of water before lunch and then in the late afternoon before dinner. On the evenings I teach dance classes, I will then be drinking more water throughout the evening. Make sure that you are drinking out of a BPA free water bottle. Be extremely careful what type of plastic water bottles you drink from, and if possible choose a glass bottle. Non "BPA Free" bottles or "one time use" plastic bottles can release chemicals that can really mess with your hormones and present your body with many extra toxins that it does not need!

Make a commitment to yourself to "drink 1/2 your body weight in ounces of water" EVERY DAY!!

Once you make it a daily habit, drinking your water will not feel like a chore, but rather something you will miss if you suddenly do not have access to water.

Make drinking your water an exciting challenge and embrace the array of health benefits that will come along with planet Earth's finest beverage!

Wake Up Call!!

Do you know what is in your morning cereal? How about the milk that you pour over your cereal? What is the lotion really doing that makes your fine lines disappear when you use it? Are you drinking water everyday or are you drinking watered down dosages of BPA & chemicals?

Is what you are doing everyday assisting you in establishing or maintaining a healthy body weight? If you are having troubles keeping your weight at a healthy level, have you considered what is really in the foods and drinks that you thought were "fairly healthy"?

It may seem scary and you may decide to not even look, but is YOUR LIFE important to YOU? You were born into your body to live a vital, healthy, and prospering life. You only have one body. Is taking care of your one and only body important to you?

Wake up and realize what it is that you are really eating, drinking, breathing, putting on your skin and then believing and listening to... Remember that you cannot believe every label, TV commercial, or advertisement. "Natural" does not necessarily mean it is good for you!

This is a time of easy access to free information, along with great data banks of scientific findings, and an ever increasing amount of knowledge regarding your endocrine system. You have no excuse to not go and find the information regarding the foods, drinks, and things you put into your environment.

The more and more I learn about how our endocrine system works, the more and more I value my CHOICE to put healthy, restoring and rebalancing foods into my system. Along with my choice of what to ingest, I strongly consider what it is that I want to put into my living environment.

Be empowered to "choice" rather than frustrated and depressed by what "damage" you may feel you have already done. Your body is alive and constantly renewing, replenishing, and rebalancing itself. Knowledge is a bouncing off place to great personal physical, mental, and spiritual health. With new found knowledge, embrace the vast variety of options and then find the ones that suit you best.

I also highly encourage you to check out Jillian Michaels' Master Your Metabolism. It is a great book that discusses how to remove anti-nutrients and toxins from your lifestyle, how to restore natural whole foods into your diet, and then rebalance your hormones by sleeping, dealing with stress, and exercising in ways that will manage them best.

You can find her book at http://www.jillianmichaels.com/ or on http://www.amazon.com/ or even at your local library.

Remember this is a learning experience for all of us! Don't forget to have FUN!!!!

Purpose of My Blog

I am passionate about fitness and health and sharing what I learn and experience with the greater global community. We, as individuals, came into this life experience to live joyful, abundant and healthy lives. We want to thrive and live our true life purpose. I believe that purpose is to live a life of freedom, expansion and joy.

 

My commitment to my readers is to write posts filled with truth, information, and inspiration. Through consistent posts and updates, my passion for global health and well being and information pertaining to fitness and health will be shared. I am pursuing a career as a lifelong learner. Having an opportunity to share what I have learned and I am learning brings me great joy and satisfaction!

Please follow me on Twitter and Pinterest where I will be sharing links to fantastic tidbits of information. Also I will be sharing ideas to inspire and motivate. Along with information on fitness & health, I will include pieces from the personal development arena as well. Who we are mentally and who we are physically are like two peas in a pod. Physical and mental health are married together and both contribute greatly to living lives of abundance, health, and prosperity.

Follow me on Twitter @1MeganBloom

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Also you can find me on Google + and Facebook. Please feel free to email me at 1meganbloom@gmail.com. Thank you so much for reading! Stay tuned for more posts :-)

A Brief Introduction...

My name is Megan and I am from the beautiful Pacific Northwest. My whole life thus far has been filled with a great variety of adventures & experiences in the worlds of fitness & health. Having stepped into this world dancing, I have always found a way to move and express myself physically, and thus dance immediately developed into one of my major life passions.

 

 

I have an extensive background in technical dance training & education. Along with being a lifelong student of dance, I am also a dance instructor with many years of experience in working with young children, high school students and all ages of adults. Along with dancing I have spent many hours enjoying the beauty of the world of nature through outdoor sports & adventures. Also outside of the dance studio I have spent many long hours in the gym on a treadmill, elliptical, or spin bike, along with a variety of resistance equipment.

 

I was born into a family that ate wild game and fresh meat, along with making homemade bread and eating lots of fruits & vegetables with every meal. During a portion of my teen years, my eating style turned to 100% Raw Vegan, with a large propensity of my foods being a fruit.  In the years since, I have been experimenting with what sort of diet is ideal for my body. Diet & nutrition fascinate me and I have and I am still learning so much.

 

As an athlete, dancer, choreographer & teacher with a wide variety of experience in the arena of fitness & nutrition, I am so excited to share with you what I have learned and what I am learning.  Please stay tuned for more information & stories.