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Relax Your Body With Meditation

Calm, balanced and centered. You can use this simple meditation to relieve stress and tension from your entire body. Do this meditation whenever you feel that you need it – at any time during the day, or to relax and calm yourself at night.

Get into a comfortable position. The position doesn’t matter – you can be seated in a chair, laying down, or even in a traditional meditation pose as pictured, if it feels good to you. Whichever position you choose, remember that comfort is the key.

While in this position, just sit quietly for a few moments and let your body relax. Let any thoughts that enter your mind slip away. Don’t try to fight these thoughts. Acknowledge them, but do not dwell on them. Let them drift out of your mind.

Once you’re comfortable and relaxed, close your eyes and breathe in and out deeply. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Focus on and your breathing and controlling your breath as it goes in and out. Continue breathing this way for a few moments.

Now imagine your body being completely relaxed. Picture all of the tension in your body coming out as if it were steam rising off of a hot towel.

This steam is rising off of each part of your body: your legs, your arms, your torso, your face.

As the steam rises out of you, each part of your body becomes more and more relaxed.

While you are visualizing this, continue to breath in and out deeply.

With each breath that you exhale, the tension and stress in your body, in the form of this steam, continues to flow out of you and vaporize into the atmosphere.

Continue like this for a few moments, until you feel completely relaxed, and all the tension has disappeared from your body. Enjoy this feeling for as long as you’d like.

When you are ready, open your eyes to end this meditation sequence. You should have a feeling of calmness, peace, and total relaxation.

Health, Mind & Soul, Stress Management

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Staying Motivated

Stay motivated!Once you’ve started your new workout routine, diet or other fitness goal, you may find that down the road it’s hard to keep the motivation you had for doing it in the first place. You might start to find your workouts boring, or keeping track of what you eat to be tedious.

When it comes to working out, you might start skipping a workout here and there, and before you know it, you haven’t worked out in a week. And one week turns into two weeks, then three weeks. We’ve all been there.

If you aren’t motivated in your dieting, you might start cheating by adding a snack here and there, or eating unhealthy foods, or telling yourself “hey, this bacon cheeseburger won’t hurt me, I’ll make up for it later,” until suddenly you are completely off your diet.

So how do you stay motivated? Ultimately, it’s up to you to stick with your diet or exercise program. But here are some tips that may help.

Remind Yourself Why You’re Doing This in the First Place

Re-focusing on your initial reason for starting to exercise or diet can be a powerful motivator. Remembering what originally gave you the motivation to make changes in your life can get you fired up all over again. Try to conjure up the thoughts and feelings you had before you started, and use that to carry you through on your way to success.

Use Another Person as Your Role Model

Maybe there’s a celebrity that has the type of body that you’d like to have. Perhaps you know someone personally who either lost a lot of weight, got in great shape, or completed their first marathon. Use them as your inspiration to keep yourself motivated. Remember, if one person can achieve something, so can you.

Use an Upcoming Event For Positive Pressure

You might have your 20th high school re-union coming up. Maybe you want to look good poolside or on the beach during next summer. Perhaps you’ve got a strip poker tournament in a few months. Whatever it is, keep in mind that you want to look as fit and sexy as possible for this particular event. Having this in mind every day can keep you on track.

Use Negative Comments From Others

Let’s face it, for some people, being told they can’t do something is reason enough to do it. You may have people in your life saying you can’t get stronger, you can’t get faster, you can’t achieve the body you want, you can’t compete in that triathlon. Turn their negative energy into a positive for yourself by using their comments to make you work even harder and achieve your goals.

However you do it, and whatever keeps you going, always stay motivated and always remember that with time, dedication, and effort, you can achieve your fitness goals.

Fitness, Men, Mind & Soul, Women

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Powerful Legs With Squats

Doing squats will give you strong and powerful legs. They help you build all of the muscles in your thighs, hips and buttocks. Squats also help strengthen the bones and ligaments in your lower body.

Squats must be done carefully and with correct form as to not hurt your knees and lower back. People with knee injuries or back problems might want to avoid doing squats, or seek the advice of a medical professional or trainer.

To do squats safely, start out standing up with your feet shoulder-width apart. Slowly bend down at the knees until your thighs are parallel to the floor. Don’t lower yourself any further than that.

Now raise yourself up and return to the starting position. If at any point during the exercise you feel discomfort in your knees, try adjusting your stance by either slightly widening it or making the distance in between your feet a little smaller.

You'll have powerful legs in no time.

When you first start out and are getting the basic motion that works for you, you should do squats without any weight. As you progress, you can add weight to the exercise by holding a dumbbell in each hand as pictured above.

Squats should be done in long sets to failure. Try doing 20 reps per set.

Exercise, Men, Muscle Building, Women

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Building Bigger Biceps With Curls

Everyone wants great biceps. For guys, well-developed biceps can look pretty impressive when wearing a short-sleeved shirt or tank top or when flexing for girls at the beach. For the ladies, nicely defined biceps are crucial along with shoulders to have sexy, toned arms which you can show off in sleeveless or strapless dresses.

Bicep curls using dumbbells are the best way to build this muscle. You can do curls standing or seated. Proper curls are done by holding the weights with your arms down below your waist and your palms facing away from your body.

From this position, raise the weight up to your shoulders, keeping your elbows close to the sides of your body. Do not swing the weights to complete the movement – if you can’t get the weight up, then it’s too heavy. You want good form for this exercise, and you want to remain in control at all times so that you isolate the biceps.

Pretty girls can do bicep curls.

To build the muscle quickly, you should do curls with weights that are on the heavier side, and do 8 to 10 reps per set. Try starting out with 3 sets of bicep curls. As you get stronger, move to a slightly heavier weight, but keep doing 8 to 10 repetitions per set.

Exercise, Fit & Sexy, Men, Muscle Building, Women

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Nutrition Benefits of Cashews

Cashew nuts are a delicious and nutritious snack that offer many health benefits. A 3.5 ounce serving of cashews is packed with 18 grams of protein, 3 grams of fiber, and 30 grams of carbs. It contains high levels of vitamins that are useful to athletes, such as 292mg of magnesium (79% of the daily recommended allowance or RDA), and 5mg of zinc (58% of the RDA).

The nuts do contain fat, but it’s considered to be a good fat that will contribute positively to your health. They also have no cholesterol.

A powerful and healthy snack.

As a snack, cashews are great for hard-training athletes to get the nutrition they need quickly and easily.

Healthy Eating, Nutrition

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Sexy Abs From Sit Ups

Sit ups have gotten a bad rap primarily because of fears that they can be back for your lower back. The truth is, if done properly — with good form and control — sit ups are hands down the best way to build your abdominal muscles.

In addition, you don’t need to do as many sit ups as you would to get the same results from doing crunches. A few good sets of 15 to 20 sit ups can be far more effective than doing hundreds of crunches. You’ll get those six-pack abs in no time doing real, full sit ups.

To do a proper sit up, start by laying on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor. Put your hands behind your head and cradle it so that you don’t strain your neck. Carefully sit up until your upper body is upright and you are looking straight ahead over your knees.

Real sit ups are the best way to get a six-pack.

Now, slowly lower your upper body back down to the starting position. During most of the movement, you should feel your abdominal muscles doing all of the work.

Some people have problems keeping their feet on the floor when doing sit ups. If you have an exercise partner, have them hold your feet down. You can also try slipping your feet underneath your couch, or putting heavy dumbbells on each foot to hold them down.

Exercise, Fit & Sexy, Men, Women

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Build Strong Shoulders With Dumbbell Presses

The dumbbell shoulder press is a great way to build strong and great looking shoulders. This exercise works your deltoids. Nicely developed deltoids will make you look good in things like tank tops, and can help you convey an athletic build even when wearing a regular shirt or a sweater.

You can do dumbbell presses either seated or standing up. To do them, hold a dumbbell in each hand. Bring them up to shoulder level with palms facing forward. Slowly push the dumbbells up over your head, then slowly lower them back down to shoulder level.

Press those dumbbells!

To build size in your deltoids, use a heavy weight and do 8 to 10 reps per set. If you’re looking to use this exercise to stay toned, use a lighter weight and do 12 to 15 reps per set.

Exercise, Fit & Sexy, Men, Muscle Building, Women

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Get Great Legs With Calf Raises

There are few things more attractive than a pair of shapely, toned legs. Well-developed calf muscles are a key part of having great looking legs, and calf raises are an excellent isolation exercise that can help build these muscles.

Great legs can turn heads.

To do calf raises, start with your feet flat on the floor, about shoulder-width apart with your hands at your sides. Your body should be perfectly straight.

Slowly lift your heels up off of the floor until you are on your tippy-toes. Once you’ve raised yourself as far as you can go, slowly lower the balls of your feet back to the floor. Repeat this in sets. Try doing 3 sets of 10 repetitions to start out. As you become more advanced, add more sets of calf raises, or try holding a dumbell in each hand to add more weight to this exercise.

Exercise, Fit & Sexy, Men, Muscle Building, Women

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Build a Powerful Chest With Pushups

Pushups are the staple of chest workouts. They also work your shoulders and triceps. Pushups are great because they can be done anywhere, at any time — so there’s no excuse for not being able to get to the gym or not having a set of weights.

To do a proper pushup, start with your chest on the floor and your hands directly beneath your shoulders. Keeping your entire body straight and in line, push yourself off of the floor all the way up until your elbows lock. Try to keep your elbows at your sides at all times – don’t let them flare out. Lower yourself back down to the starting position, keeping your back and body straight. Never arch your back, or curve your spine outward.

Marines just love pushups.

Pushups are best done in long sets to failure. Do as many pushups as you can during each set, resting for about two minutes in between sets. As you get stronger, add more sets, doing as many as you can in each set.

Exercise, Men, Muscle Building, Women

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