Exercise, Exercise, Exercise!

We all gotta do it.. 

That's right, exercise is important! 

That doesn't mean it's easy though right? Hell no. Hands up if you would opt out of exercising if you could be healthy without it? yea, exactly. 

But the truth of the matter is, we can't live without it. Exercise is essential not just to burn calories, because lets face it, if you just cut your calories enough you can loose weight without the need for exercising, however this is not healthy! Many people can be thin, but be unhealthy internally at the same time. Their are so many benefits of exercise that go beyond the aesthetic values. 

1. Mood/Emotional well-being 

Exercise has been shown in numerous studies to be able to lift a depressed mood, and also help with depression, a study published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research concluded that "both clinical and non-clinical subjects may benefit acutely from even a single bout of exercise." This study was referring to subjects who fit into the category of being older men and women living in southern California. 

The reason for this is that exercise releases  endorphins which act as your bodies 'feel good' hormones. This hormone has also been shown to help us cope with stress, and with the ever increasing amount of stress that we are told to cope with on a day to day basis, I think a little exercise is the perfect kind of medicine! 

2. Circulation 

Humans are not stationary creatures, we have evolved to function best when we are moving around our environment. There are a lot of biological benefits that arise from regular exercise.

Circulation is an important one of those benefits. Blood needs to be pumped around our whole body, even down to your little pinky toe, and all of the pressure which pushes the blood down to your little toe is generated from the heart muscle. Even though the heart is a very powerful muscle, it isn't able to defy gravity, what I mean by this is that, once the blood from your heart has reached your little toe, it needs to be able to be transported back up to your heart, and how does it do this? Well, there are a couple of techniques that help blood get back to your heart, one of them is little valves which are present inside your veins which basically stop the back flow of blood that is trying to get back to your heart. Secondly, the muscles that surround these veins constrict when you walk and help to push the blood up to your heart. 

This is why regular exercise is beneficial for circulation! I think that's pretty neat, don't you? 

3. Heart Health 

Just as with all the muscles that surround your body, the more you work out your heart muscle, the stronger and healthier it gets. For me, this fact is the one that motivates me to fill my life with regular exercise, I want my heart to be the healthiest it can be so that it can do its job more effectively! 

Although I have only touched very briefly on some of the benefits of exercise, I hope you can appreciate that our bodies are a machine that needs to be moved and worked out in order to perform at its best. The body is an amazing and complex creation that deserves to be treated with respect, love and care, and it's the only one you've got! So look after it! 

http://www.premierfitnesscamp.com

Good Morning

Good Morning (In New Zealand) 

Morning everyone, here in New Zealand it is 10:43a.m. at the moment :) 

I hope you are all having or have had a wonderful day! Today I started my day off with a big ol' glass of vitamin water! I find that it really helps to have at least 1L of water before your first meal, to help your digestion and just get you started on the right hydration foot in the morning! 

I would like to talk a little today about the issue of scientific back up for the 80:10:10 lifestyle, and how some people may think there isn't much of it floating around, it is true that a lot of people that have come to this lifestyle and advocate it openly do not have the common qualifications that are found when giving dietary advice. 

However, I am of the growing belief that science is limited. What I mean by this is that at one point it was believed that a way to cure a headache was to either smack the 'victim' on the head, or release some of their blood in an attempt to let the bad demons escape. Looking back on this ideology we can surely laugh a little about it now (and feel sorry for all the victims of the medicine in those days), however no one thought twice about it back then. 

I like to think that in another 100 or so years, humans may be laughing at all of our mistakes, which we so firmly believe in at this point in time. So in a way, even though in today's world there is not a lot of research or evidence behind 80:10:10 or veganism vs omnivorism in general, doesn't exclude the possibility that one day there might be a scientific reason behind the success of this diet.

This way of thinking has helped me to have faith in something which may not make sense to modern day science, but that so many people have been able to experience a number of health benefits from. 

This is how I view health, as much as it is a scientific subject, it is also a spiritual journey, which each individual needs to explore for themselves, to find what they best thrive on. 

Welcome

Hi everyone. Welcome to my blog! 

First off I would like to introduce myself, my name is Debbie and I live in Dunedin, New Zealand.

I have fairly recently made the switch to a vegan life style, and in particular, the 801010 lifestyle! I am not 100% raw, as I prefer having a cooked meal at the end of the day.

My inspiration for this lifestyle came definitely from Freelee the banana girl and her boyfriend, Durianrider, you can find these two inspiring individuals on you tube just type in the names above :)

I am also inspired by people in the field of nutrition as this is what I am studying at the moment, such as Dr. Libby Weaver.

I have always been a little scientist at heart and so experimenting with food (among other things) has been the centre point in my life for a long time. I have tried every diet on the market, in fact, for quite a few months I was on a protein only diet! This involved eating fish and meat or eggs with every meal! I have also tried fasting and paleo diets and I have also made the unfortunate fall into severe calorie restricting (under 1000 calories a day) all in the pursuit of being thin!

However recently I have been trying to make the mental shift from a restrictive to a more health-conscious diet and this is what led me to discover Freelee and the 801010 diet!

So follow me on my journey to find optimal health and happiness!

Debbie